Re: The value of unmodified conffiles left on disk of removed, but not purged, packages
On Mon, 26 Feb 2018, Michael Biebl wrote:
> Basically, every package which allows to be extended by other packages
> via .d directories is affected.
>
> Take logrotated as a example and the dance e.g. rsyslog has to do in
> preinst/postrm.
Heh; I should have known that this hack already existed.
> So dpkg would have to remember if a conffile was removed by the admin
> prior to the uninstallation. Doesn't sound too complicated to me, we
> already have an obsolete flag in the status file.
I think we'd also need a mechanism for packages/dpkg to track
non-conffile configuration files too.
And we'd still need the above hack when the configuration file should be
disabled on remove even if the admin has only modified the configuration
file.
Maybe we should consider breaking with the past, and moving
configuration files when a package is removed to some staging directory
or tarball, and just restoring them if the package is reinstalled
without an intervening purge. [Or whatever other creative solution the
dpkg developers decide is the best course of action.]
--
Don Armstrong https://www.donarmstrong.com
nothing except the impossible shall occur
-- e.e. cummings "XLII" _1 x 1_
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