Re: massfiling

[Andreas Barth <aba@not.so.argh.org>]

* Fabio Massimo Di Nitto (fabbione@fabbione.net) [040418 20:25]:
> The main problems are:
> 1) Packages changing user configuration files in a dangerous manner
>    (RC bugs)

When do you consider that they do it in a dangerous manner? Is grep
dangerous? Is echo foo >> dangerous?


> Two important notes:
> a) The way in which packages use modules-config/apache-modconf.
>    Most maintainers used our examples for postinst/prerm.  We have
>    now fixed some problems in the prerm phase, and therefore suggest that
>    maintainers should check their scripts against the new examples we provide
>    in README.modules, which ensures that apache-modconf exists before
>    attempting to use it.
>    (http://cvs.raw.no/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/debian-apache/debian/README.modules)

Well, I dislike this way. Reason is that user configuration could be
lost on remove in this way. (Example: User installs mod foo; foo is
enabled. Then user decides to disable foo by hand or not. Then user
removes, but not purges foo; here foo is disabled by script. After
a new install, the install enables foo again. So, the previous disable
was lost.

So, if you change the script, then it would be good if you could
seperate interfaces, and provide a "install", "remove" and "purge"
interface for the maintainer script, that do the appropriate actions,
and not fiddle with users decisions (except on purge, where everything
is forgot).



Cheers,
Andi
-- 
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