Re: Clarification of Policy and Packaging manuals requested
Let me just throw in a few notes:
(1. I'm in the process of taking over the maintenance of the Packaging
Manual. I'll release this as a new package as soon as the dpkg package is
released.)
2. I'm wondering why it's so hard for people to get the difference between
configuration files and conffiles. Perhaps, the name "conffiles" is not a
good name (but either way, it's unlikely that we'll change the name
because this would be a _lot_ of work). Here is my understanding of these
two terms:
conffiles (CF): a file that is listed in the `conffiles' control file of
a binary package (.deb)
configuration file (CFGF): a file that may be changed by the local
system administrator to adjust a program to her needs
Clearly, these two things are not the same.
3. Whether a file is a CFGF should be clear by looking at the purpose of
the file/program. Whether a file should be tagged as CF, should also be
clear: files should be tagged as CF if the file is included in the package
tree (i.e., displayed by looking at `dpkg -c') and if any possible changes
done by the local sysadmin should be preserved during package upgrades.
4. But tagging a file as CF also has disadvantages: The sysadmin is
queried for each modified CF during package upgrades. This can be quite
annoying and also confusing if the sysadmin doesn't know what the file is
about. That's why we'll change policy WRT conffiles (CF) soon: CFs may
not be modified by any scripts/programs of the package (or any other
package)--CFs should only be touched by the local sysadmin.
5. However, there is an easy work around for getting the functionality of
a CF w/o tagging the file as such: Simply don't include the package in the
package tree (the .deb), but create and manage this file via the
maintainer scripts (postinst, postrm, etc.). This is the suggested
solution for CFGF which are modified by scripts.
Comments are appreciated. If you think that some sections in the manuals
should be clarified, please tell me exact sentences which you find
`confusing'.
Thanks,
Chris
-- Christian Schwarz
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