Re: Feature request: Reset configuration

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Daniel Bock wrote:

> This is the workaround needed to reset the configuration of some
> debian packages who need them. There are also other workarounds
> (e.g. purge first and ignore dependencies and then install again;
> e.g. Extract configuration files from .deb manually), but they are
> ugly and workarounds as well. Or have I overlooked something?

I agree.  It would be nice to have

	dpkg-deb --extract foo.deb / /etc

to extract the /etc directory from a package and

	dpkg-deb --conffiles foo.deb | xargs dpkg-deb --extract foo.deb /

or maybe

	dpkg-deb --extract foo.deb / --conffiles

to extract all files marked as conffile.

Note, though, that this is not enough to reset the configuration in
many cases.  Sometimes maintainer scripts go as far as writing files
in /etc themselves from scratch.

> It seems to be an important feature and I propose you to implement
> this option

This part, though, I disagree with.  If you or anyone you know would
like to work on this, I would be glad to help them.

(A not small part of my motivation in this is to give others the
opportunity to read and write dpkg code, too.)

Hope that helps,
Jonathan