Re: dpkg enhancements for better debconf support
On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Joey Hess wrote:
> Doogie asked me to send in a list of ways dpkg could better support
> debconf. In rough order of usefulness:
>
> 1. Run config script under debconf before running postinst script of
> package, passing in appropriate arguments. /usr/bin/debconf takes a
> script to run under debconf and arguments to pass to the script as
> parameters, and this is what it was designed for.
Don't you mean running the config script before preinst?
> Benefits include me being able to get rid of a load of gross code in
> debconf that works out the config script to run (grossly handling
> things like config script running before a preinst, by hardcoding in
> where dpkg currently unpacks a package control info into tmp.ci).
> Also, it would eliminate the requirement that postinst scripts do
> special stuff to let debconf hook in and run the config script.
>
> An old patch to do this is
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2001/debian-dpkg-200102/msg00003.html
> Also has useful discussion of why it may be better to run the
> config script after the preinst, not before it.
>
> 2. Somehow work out which regular maintainer scripts expect to
> communicate with debconf, and run them under /usr/bin/debconf. This
> would eliminate gross hackery in the current
> ". /usr/share/debconf/confmodule" mechanism, which currently involves
> re-execing the maintainer script that calls it. This would probably
> be best implemented as a new control file field, something like
> "Debconf-MaintScript: postinst postrm"
>
> 3. Add a new status field or state so that dpkg can track which packages
> have had their config script run already (and which version of it) and
> skip re-running the config script. This would merely cut down on
> duplicate runs of the idempotent config scripts when a package is
> preconfigured before dpkg runs.
The rest of this seems doable.
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