Re: Removing self-managed configuration files?

[Florent Rougon <f.rougon@free.fr>]

Hi,

Marc Haber <mh+debian-mentors@zugschlus.de> wrote:

> I have a package with a bunch of configuration files that are managed
> by my maintainer scripts and not by dpkg.

Therefore, these configuration files are *not* conffiles. Your Subject
line was misleading (especially considering we are on -mentors).

> (1) Let the new package version know about the md5sum of the last
>     version(s) of a.conf that were in the package.
> (2) If one of the md5sums matches, the file has not been changed,
>     remove it.
> (3) If none of the md5sums matches, the file has locally been changed,
>     rename it to a.conf.package-old

With a little message in (3) to let the admin know that he can safely
remove a.conf.package-old.

> Is that acceptable? Or is there anything easier, more elegant, more
> policy compliant?

I think it's the usual, and correct way (sometimes actually performed by
ucf, but since you're getting rid of the file, there is no point in
putting it under ucf control).

-- 
Florent