Bug#22935: PROPOSED] Do not make hardlinks to conffiles

[Ron <ron@microtronics.com.au>]

Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > minor semantics, yeah.. but only config files that are to be deleted then
> > recreated, or renamed, (most of them ;) fall victim to this..
> > if only the _contents_ are changed then the link should be ok..
> 
> but is not in fact correct, as if you have conffile /etc/foo, hardlink
> /var/pkg/foo, and an package upgrade upgrades the /etc/foo confile
> (with the installers permission), then /var/pkg/foo ends up pointing
> to /etc/foo.dpkg-old, which is not what we want.]

You are quite right..  I can only plead confusion over config files (the
original wording) and conffiles, but that's a thoroughly lame excuse ;-)

> This is one of the proposals which Ian reopened as being important; I
> am strongly inclined to agree with him, and therefore second this
> proposal, and will include it in the upcoming policy revision unless
> anyone has any objections.

In the absence of any reasoned explanation for why this should not happen,
it (still) has my support too.

best,
Ron