Re: to conffile or not to conffile
On Wed, 17 Oct 2001 06:46, Matt Armstrong wrote:
> - Policy forbids me from editing the /etc/flipit.conf if I mark it a
> conffile.
> - The program won't work if /etc/flipit.conf isn't edited.
> - I really do want to make it a conffile, so the user is notified of
> future options.
> - I really do want to ask the user what serial port to use when the
> thing is installed.
>
> How do I best resolve this paradox?
OK. So you install a file and then customise it to the user. IMHO
customising the file on first install does not count as "editing a conf file"
as you are just changing what the user will see as the default config.
Then when the user upgrades the system tells them that they have changed the
file (but they didn't change it!). This is confusing, annoying, a PITA, and
if they say "Y" then they lose the config change that they requested.
Probably the best solution is to create some system whereby multiple files
are used. A basic example is a daemon start script which does:
echo "# Auto generated file do not edit" > /etc/flipit/flipit.conf
cat /etc/flipit/conf.d/* >> /etc/flipit/flipit.conf
Then you can have one file with the serial port and another file with the
rest.
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