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Re: debconf as a registry



On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 11:39:50AM -0400, Joey Hess wrote:
> Bas Wijnen wrote:
> > Debconf actively overwriting values is slightly different from it giving
> > you a wrong default which it then allows you to set to the desired value
> > again.  The former is overwriting, the latter is just very annoying.
> > 
> > Then again, with debconf's priority scheme, it may well happen that the
> > default is used without asking the question, so I suppose there isn't
> > that much difference.
> 
> I still don't understand you, and you are still not providing any
> examples, after having made an assertion that a many packages are
> misusing debconf as a registry, and pointing to a faulty code search
> which did not seem to find any.

As I wrote, the only thing you need is to search for any package using a
config script.  Searching for db_input path:\.config$ gives for example
cyrus-sasl2 and bind9 on the first page.

Bind9's config script has the simplicity that I like (apart from the
extra db_go calls).  A simple package should be able to have a simple
config script like that.

But it is wrong, because it ignores current values in the configuration
file.  Its postinst file will happily overwrite values in there with the
debconf answers, which may well come from the cache (especially since
they're low priority).

> > there is no reason that this provided database has to persist after
> > the question was asked.
> 
> It's also needed for the config script to communicate values to the
> postinst script so they can be used

Fair enough: after the answer was used.

Thanks,
Bas

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