Re: Bug#201023: dosemu: purging doesmu wipes out all user data under /var/lib/dosemu)
On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 02:06:59AM +0200, Emile van Bergen wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 05:45:23PM -0600, Jamin W. Collins wrote:
>
> > What about data file created by the package through its normal
> > operation. Such as log directories, or user account files? Again,
> > these are created by the application directly, not the user. Which
> > category do these fall in. Since they don't fit the categories
> > above, should they be left behind on a purge?
>
> Well, for logfiles and similar things I'd say the question of what to
> do when --purging is a bit less controversial than for category 3.
>
> For files created during normal operation of the package I'd ask
> myself: is this created by the package on behalf of the user?
This is a very fine line. If the user entered data that is stored in
the files, is it on behalf of the user and thus user data? Case in
point is the Jabber package. Each user's roster and account are stored
in spool files. Should these be deleted on a purge?
> For log files, this does not hold. In most cases those are not the
> primary output of the tool when operated by the user, but instruments
> to gather statistics and monitor the tool's operation. I'd expect
> --purge to delete such files.
But they are neither conffiles or explicitly part of the package
> It's only user data that should be excluded from --purge, for the
> simple reason that there should be nothing holier to a computer
> program than user data.
And "user data" can be defined in a multitude of different ways. I'm
sure to someone out there the spool files the Jabber package creates are
"user data". The term sadly is overly general.
--
Jamin W. Collins
Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo
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