Re: postinst scripts failing because a new conffile wasn't accepted: Is it a bug?
Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net> wrote:
> Scripsit Peter Samuelson
>> [Henning Makholm]
>
>> > Do you mean that every package that offers to edit conffiles based on
>> > debconf questions is policy-buggy?
>
>> 'conffile' is dpkg jargon that has a specific meaning: configuration
>> files that dpkg handles specially w/r/t upgrades and removals. Editing
>> a conffile at install time makes no sense.
>
> Of course it would have to be done a preinst time, before dpkg starts
> unpacking the new version.
This would circumvent the "ask again" problem, but I think it is still
problematic: The admin is shown a diff between the new conffile and the
present conffile, but only the unimportant changes are shown, while the
important change has already been done by the preinst script. This is
confusing - especially if the admin remembers his old file, or if one of
the unimportant changes is a change in a comment that says how important
the new setting is...
>> If you want to edit a configuration file, don't ship it as a
>> conffile - in fact, don't ship it at all.
>
> You seem to be missing the entire context of the conversation. Please
> read back in the thread.
No, I think he simply missed the idea of doing the editing in preinst,
just like me - you never mentioned it before.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer
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