Re: Configuration DB
On Sun, Aug 08, 2004 at 12:51:23PM +1000, Cameron Hutchison wrote:
> Once upon a time John Hasler said...
> > Cameron Hutchison writes:
> > > Hard disk crash. I've gone through the same pain as the original poster.
> >
> > So you mean restore, not reinstall.
>
> Well, both. I restored my system by reinstalling it.
>
> > Any package that overwrites your changes to config files and/or uses
> > debconf as a registry is seriously buggy.
>
> For some packages, I will maintain its configuration through debconf,
> since I have no desire to understand another config file syntax and
> debconf is used well by the package to generate a config file given some
> basic information.
>
> If I am to change some of that basic information, it needs to be in
> debconf. Therefore I need to be able to reload the debconf database from
> a backup. That is, it is not enough just to restore /etc. That will get
> the system back up and running with the same configuration at that point
> in time, but future reconfiguration through debconf will not work.
>
> > > How can you backup your debconf answers and restore them in such a way
> > > that it replaces re-entering the answers?
> >
> > Back up /var/cache/debconf
>
> While I accept that this is the correct answer, surely this is the wrong
> place to put this sort of data?
>
> According to the filesystem hierarchy standard (FHS) at
> http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/fhs/fhs-5.2.html ,
> it says:
>
> /var/cache is intended for cached data from applications. Such
> data is locally generated as a result of time-consuming I/O or
> calculation. The application must be able to regenerate or restore
> the data. Unlike /var/spool, the cached files can be deleted without
> data loss. The data should remain valid between invocations of the
> application and rebooting the system.
>
> I dont see how the debconf application can regenerate or restore this
> data should it be deleted.
>
> More distressing for me is that I dont include /var/cache in my backups.
> According to FHS, I should not have to.
>
> Thanks for your answers, John.
>
> CHeers
>
There is a file /etc/debconf.conf This file contains debconf configuration
It appears that you can change where debconf keeps its data by editing
this file. While the powers that be are considering the issue, you can
put your debconf data where ever you want.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net
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