Re: [PATCH] urlfilter: Remove bundled Toulouse blacklist

[Michael Tremer <michael.tremer@ipfire.org>]

Hello Phil,

Yes, this makes sense so far. But what actually happens when squidGuard is being started with nothing? I remember that this list has been treated as a dummy. Did you test this case too?

-Michael

> On 29 Aug 2026, at 16:56, p27m <p27m@orange.fr> wrote:
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> Thank you for your reply.
> 
> The problem described in the bug report is actually quite simple.
> 
> Currently, the blacklist included in the IPFire repository and installed with IPFire dates from June 15, 2005, so it is now obsolete.
> Since March 2026, the University of Toulouse has changed some directories in its blacklist into symbolic links.
> Therefore, when restoring a backup containing a blacklist downloaded after this change, `tar` can fail because symbolic links cannot replace existing directories. As a result, the backup restoration fails.
> 
> @adolf previously added a fix to `backup.pl` which removes the existing contents of `/var/ipfire/urlfilter/blacklists/` before extracting the backup.
> 
> However, I recently discovered that the problem could still occur when restoring a backup from a backup ISO.
> 
> For this reason, I thought that the simplest solution, and the best way to avoid similar problems in the future, would be to remove the obsolete blacklist archive from the installation.
> 
> This patch does not prevent URLFilter from working without an installed blacklist. It also ensures that the old blacklist shipped with IPFire cannot interfere with restoring a newer blacklist from a backup.
> 
> I have tested the patch with upgrades, fresh ISO installations, and restoration of backups containing both the Toulouse blacklist and the IPFire DBL blacklist.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Philippe
> 
> Le 29/08/2026 à 17:31, Michael Tremer a écrit :
>> Thank you very much for this patch.
>> 
>> I could not quite figure out what you want to achieve with this change. Is this data being shipped causing some problems? The bug report did not give me the information I was looking for either.
>> 
>> All the best,
>> -Michael