Re: dpkg: File missing at postinst (Re: Bug#98419: Postgresql on sid (fwd))

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Oliver" == Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> writes:

    Oliver> Can anyone tell me why this file does not get installed in
    Oliver> time for the postinst script to use it?  It is a conffile,
    Oliver> if that is relevant.

I would wonder why you are trying to access the conffile in the
postinst script (last I heard, it was against Debian policy to modify
a conffile in the postinst script).

However, there are good reasons for read-only access to the conffile,
in the postinst script. Probably the /etc/init.d/* files are a good
example.

One case I can think of where the config file may not get installed
(AFAIK + IIRC, but not recently tested):

1. user manually deletes the file.
2. user installs latest version of package.
3. conffile within package has not changed since the last version user had
   installed.
4. dpkg sees that the conffile has not changed, and does bother reinstalling
   it.

I strongly suspect that in the case of postgresql, the file should
*not* be a conffile, but just a normal config file, which is managed
100% by the package's maintainer scripts.
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>