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Re: lintian and (non-)conffiles in /etc



On Tue, Nov 13, 2001 at 09:50:10AM -0500, Itai Zukerman wrote:
> >> Agreed.  Then don't you think that the lintian' message is
> >> inappropriate?
> >
> > no, /etc files shipped IN the package, must be conffiles, no
> > question.  
> >
> > files created by the maintainer scripts in /etc but not shipped in the
> > package at all do not have to be conffiles, but lintian won't know
> > about those and thus will not warn you about them.
> 
> What about this:
> 
> 1.  preinst backs up an existing /etc/foo.
> 2.  /etc/foo, not marked as a conffile, gets overwritten.
> 3.  postinst merges in changes, or prompts the user, or something.

thats the wrong way to do it then.  you should generate /etc/foo from
the maintainer scripts in the first place.  and all your code that
munges it must not be run unless the admin has given explicit
permission to do so.  (unless you can determine he has never ever
touched /etc/foo before, like dpkg conffile handling).  

-- 
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

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