Bug#108587: May packages rm -rf subdirectories of /etc/ ?

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

On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 06:30, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 07:21:04AM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote:
> > What about this?
> > 
> > Treat the disappearence of a conffile the same way as you treat any
> > other changes.  Prompt the user as usual, if they answer yes, then
> > rename the file to .dpkg-old.  Otherwise do nothing.
> > 
> > Dpkg will still need to remember the .dpkg-old file so that later
> > on it can purge it.
> 
> As much as I hate prompting, this is what I personally always had in
> mind.
> 
> It's too hard to know what the right thing to do is.  Best to prompt.

Wichert Akkerman made the point that in some cases you
have a package B that Depends on package A and uses /etc/A.conf .
A new A is released that no longer contains /etc/A.conf .  The
new situation is broken and policy-non-compliant no matter how
you look at it; but what is the safest thing to do?  Wichert
argues that the safest thing to do is to leave the file alone.

Now, the above proposal is that an offer be made to the admin to
rename A.conf to A.conf.dpkg-old .  In recognition of Wichert's
failure scenario, the prompt should at least warn the admin that
agreeing to rename the file _could_ break packages that Depend
on A.

--
Thomas