Re: "All packages use debconf"
On 21-Jul-01, 06:19 (CDT), Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@debian.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Colin Walters wrote:
> > If a maintainer chooses not to implement debconf support in such a way
> > that existing modifications to conffiles will be preserved, then when
> > someone does dpkg-reconfigure foo, they should get a warning that any
> > local changes will be blown away, and asked whether or not they want
> > to continue.
>
> I dislike this way of doing things... but I suppose that can't be helped.
Requiring dpkg-reconfigure to work just won't fly: consider Apache's
configuration files. Debconf is a good way to generate initial
configuration files (assuming good defaults can't be shipped),
but it's not a good general purpose mechanism. It's great if the
config file is simple enough that dpkg-reconfigure can be properly
supported, but I wouldn't ever criticise someone for bailing out
with either "Reconfiguration not supported, please edit /etc/foo" or
"Reconfiguration will overwrite /etc/foo, losing all changes, are you
sure?".
> But let's make something clear: ONE CANNOT MODIFY CONFFILES IN MAINTAINER
> SCRIPTS. EVER. You can modify config files, but if you mark a config file
> as a conffile for dpkg, you must not touch it.
Amen, brother.
Steve
--
Steve Greenland <stevegr@debian.org>
(Please do not CC me on mail sent to this list; I subscribe to and read
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