Re: May packages rm -rf subdirectories of /etc/ ?

[Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk>]

On Fri, 2003-07-25 at 11:21, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> On 25 Jul 2003 09:20:20 +0200, Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk> said: 
> > Conffiles are different in one respect, which that is that they can
> > be locally modified.  When a conffile is to be overwritten and it
> > has been modified, the user is asked for permission and the old
> > version is backed up as *.dpkg-old.  So when a conffile is to be
> > deleted and it has been modified, the user should be asked for
> > permission and the file renamed to *.dpkg-old (or *.dpkg-orphaned).
> > Agree?
> 
> 	No. Since this scenario only happens when the conffile is
>  going to be ignored anyway, why do I want to have an locally modified
>  version lying around by default?

If the conffile is unmodified it is removed.  If it has been
modified then the default option (of the two presented to the
user) would be to rename the file.

If you are asking why there should be a backup, then notice
that the same question can be asked about any backup file.

Perhaps you are thinking that no backup is needed because
foo no longer lists foo.conf as a conffile.  But it is quite
easy to imagine circumstances in which the admin might want
to look in the old conffile.  Perhaps he will need the values
in it when he uses foo's fancy new debconf-driven configuration
scheme.  :)

So why rename the file at all?  Because the *.dpkg-old suffix
will deactivate the file if it is in a run-parts directory 
and will generally make it clear that the file is no longer in
use.

--
Thomas Hood