Re: dpkg status Conffiles obsolete flag?

[Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>]

Hi,

>> I am hoping to understand the "obsolete" flag on conffiles in the dpkg
>> status file.  There are many packages that include this flag at the
>> end of the line.  For example:
[...]
>
> They are obsolete because they no longer exist in the package.  It is
> the package maintainer's task to deal with them (e.g. remove them if
> they are unmodified and no longer needed).  Unfortunately, this is often
> not done.
>
>> The reason I am looking at this is because I am trying to automate
>> system upgrades from Lenny to Squeeze and some packages have init.d
>> scripts that are marked obsolete and I am trying to understand why.
>>
>> Could some kind soul enlighten me on how conffiles are marked obsolete?
>
> When they are no longer shipped in the package that used to contain
> them; dpkg does not currently remove obsolete conffiles unless that
> package is purged, see #330256¹.

dpkg-maintscript-helper(1) also has a good explanation what happens and
why.  It also makes dealing with them (in maintainer scripts) easier.

Regards,
Ansgar