Re: Init scripts as conffiles
On Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:33:25 +0000
Tony Houghton <h@realh.co.uk> wrote:
> I was wondering, why are init scripts installed as conffiles? Is there a
> good reason other than that they're in /etc and nobody bothered to make
> an exception in debhelper?
>
> I would have thought it would be better to treat them as not to be
> modified by the user/admin; any init configuration should be done via
> /etc/default.
OK, I can see that it's probably better to leave init scripts as they
are, but what I don't like about it is that init scripts get left behind
when uninstalling packages. It wouldn't be quite so bad if packages
called update-rc.d disable on their init scripts when removed so that
init doesn't read the disused scripts, but AFAICT from the Policy Manual
(sec 9.3.3.1) that isn't standard behaviour.
If you try to remove them manually they don't get reinstalled if you
reinstall the package later unless you use dpkg --force-conf and if you
use purge you may remove other conffiles that you do want to keep. The
fact that they aren't ordinary config files can cause a problem if you
delete one or break it badly during editing. Ideally a program should
still work and use default settings if a config file is missing, but in
most cases a missing init script breaks a package quite badly.
How about I file a wishlist bug for dpkg and apt for an option similar
to purge but which only purges files which haven't been altered from the
package's default?
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