Re: Modifying other packages' conffiles: the not-so-ideal way

[frank@kuesterei.ch (Frank Küster)]

Andreas Metzler <ametzler@downhill.at.eu.org> schrieb:

> On Tue, Nov 11, 2003 at 11:16:39AM +0100, Frank Küster wrote:
>> policy says in section 10.7.4:
>
>> ,----
>> | If it is desirable for two or more related packages to share a
>> | configuration file and for all of the related packages to be able to
>> | modify that configuration file, then the following should be done:
>> | 
>> |    1. One of the related packages (the "owning" package) will manage
>> |    the configuration file with maintainer scripts as described in the
>> |    previous section.
>> |
>> |    2. The owning package should also provide a program that the other
>> |    packages may use to modify the configuration file.
>> |
>> |    3. The related packages must use the provided program to make any
>> |    desired modifications to the configuration file.
>> `----
> [...]
>> ,----
>> | The maintainer scripts must not alter a conffile of any package
>> `----
>
> You are mixing up "conffile" and "configuration-file".

No, I don't think so. A conffile usually is a configuration file,
too. /etc/pcmcia/network.opts is a conffile of pcmcia-cs, and it is a
configuration file that has to be edited by the user to make it work.

In this case, a user of my package (netenv) would have to a add a couple
of lines to it - or, as I said, a script or maintainer script could do
it for him. A package with similar functionality, whereami, yet has
its additions added to this file (and /etc/pcmcia/network). 

Bye, Frank
-- 
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie