Policy and conffile editing
I am attempting to package a simple Squid redirector. To have any
function whatsoever, a directive must be inserted into squid.conf
declaring it as a redirector. I had envisioned a nice debconf question
showing the line that would be inserted and asking for the admin's
permission to do so.
It seems this is at odds with policy, which prohibutes the automated
editing of conffiles (such as squid.conf). This is a bit ironic, since
asking 'Would you like to enable this package by inserting a line FOO
into /etc/squid.conf? [Y/n]' is much cleaner than printing a note 'You
must run the script /usr/sbin/setupthispckage to enable this package'.
While both of those would acomplish essensially the same thing, only
one would be permissible by policy.
What should I do in regards to editing this conffile? I have my heart
set on making a nice, preferably debconfized, interactive question on
whether to make the change, and then doing it. Requiring the user to
perform extra steps outside of the package installation would be a
major drag. Maybe squid.conf shouldn't be a conffile, as it's likely
to be modified? I'm aware of many packages that automatically edit
configuration files, but don't know of any that do that to
_conffiles_. What is the reccomended course of action when a package
must edit other packages' conffiles to be useful?
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