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Re: customized configuration issue



>>>>> On Sat, 15 May 2004 16:24:26 +0200, "C. Gatzemeier" <c.gatzemeier@tu-bs.de> said:

    Gatzemeier> Am Friday 14 May 2004 19:48 schrieb Andreas Tille:
    >> If you use debconf "the right way" you parse the config file
    >> first and adjust the debconf database according to changes in
    >> the config files.  So config files have the main priority.
    >> That means in other words, if you would run cfengine and change
    >> some parameters which are controled by debconf the next run of
    >> dpkg-reconfigure <package> should bring up the values which
    >> were set by cfengine as "current".  If not file a bug report
    >> against the package in question ...

    Gatzemeier> Hmm, you mean that it should idealy be like that, or
    Gatzemeier> am I misunderstanding you? Because in that case the
    Gatzemeier> config files themselfes should probably be
    Gatzemeier> "pre-seeded", well lets just call it configured,
    Gatzemeier> instead of the debconf registry, err config.dat. Or
    Gatzemeier> not?

This  sounds somewhat  weird to me.   Leaving aside  for  a moment the
question  of whether debconf is  a good way for handling configuration
values or not, IMHO cfengine  should be invoked *inside* the  postinst
scripts and used *together* with debconf.

This  way if you preseed the  debconf database  with custom values and
run  dpkg-reconfigure, then the  postinst  script will invoke cfengine
and transparently modify the  conffiles  according to the values  that
you injected in the database.

Using it externally  to directly modify a  conffile that debconf would
later parse, changing the stored values accordingly  does not make too
much sense to me.. what am I missing?

    >> > kind of tools conflict and break other tools and manual
    >> modifications, or > they have to refuse working. "File has been
    >> modified!" (Who dared to?)  > "Do you want to overwrite it, or
    >> discard changes/updates?"
    >> 
    >> Exactly - but were is the problem here?

    Gatzemeier> Somehow I managed to get this type of messegas several
    Gatzemeier> times during upgrades.  If the config system stops
    Gatzemeier> working I'd sadly consider it not very helpful/usable
    Gatzemeier> and think a simple config file change should not
    Gatzemeier> confuse it. I wished the system had flexible syntax
    Gatzemeier> and semantic knowlege instead of more or less
    Gatzemeier> hardcoded search/substitute procedures. Thus
    Gatzemeier> Config4GNU which sports modular meta-config
    Gatzemeier> definitions etc.

Config4GNU looks really The Right Thing, but  I just don't whether the
project is alive or not, and whether it has chances to reach the goals
it states. Does somebody have fresh information about it?

bye,

free



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