2012-06-07 - Tom Gundersen

As of filesystem-2012.6-2 the folders /var/run and /var/lock will be replaced by symlinks to /run and /run/lock , respectively.

On most systems this is already the case, as initscripts create the symlinks on boot. However, these symlinks are not owned by any package, which is what we are fixing with this upgrade.

If the symlinks are already in place on your system (which should be the case for most people), then you can simply perform

pacman -Syu --ignore filesystem && pacman -S filesystem --force

Otherwise, if /var/run or /var/lock are directories (e.g. if you are using systemd and never booted with initscripts ) you need to delete the directories before performing the update. As these directories are used at runtime, it is recommended to shutdown any background tasks before performing

pacman -Syu --ignore filesystem && rm -rf /var/run /var/lock && \ pacman -S filesystem

Followed by a reboot before using the system again.

Note: In general, it is strongly advised to avoid the --force switch as it is not safe. However, in this particular case it is safe, and suggested to avoid having to manually delete the /var/run or /var/lock symlinks.