Re: Conffiles and Configuration files (again)
On Tue, 7 Apr 1998, Philip Hands wrote:
> > No, this script should not be a conffile. Any customisation, such as fax
> > ports, should be read from a configuration file somewhere under /etc. If a
> > script in /usr/bin requires customisation by the sysadmin, this is a bug
> > in the script.
>
> Absolutely, If you _have_ to edit the file for the package to work, that's
> a bug.
>
> So let's say there is such a package, and we fix the bug (so you no longer
> need to edit a /usr/bin/ script on Debian systems).
>
> This does not change the fact that the normal way of configuring that package
> (on all OS's except Debian) is to edit the script file. This means that some
> sysadmins in mixed environments, will do just that.
>
> Should we slap their wrists (by destroying their configuration every upgrade)
> or should we react to this state of affairs, and add the script to the
> package's conffiles ?
IMO, there should be a big warning (probably in capitals) at the top of
the script. The sysadmin should be advised to edit the file in /etc and
to leave the script like it is. The script will anyhow be different from
the upstream version (because it reads a config file), so it shouldn't be
too much hassle to add the warning.
> Please explain the downside of listing a non-configuration file as a conffile.
I don't know the downside of conffiles that aren't configuration files,
but a sysadmin is expected to know that dpkg will happily overwrite any
file under /usr when upgrading a package. This behaviour will not change,
because it is very impractical to make every file in the packaging system
a conffile (think about calculating an md5sum for every file in a package
on a slow system).
> I'm not saying this should be a recommended approach, but if we find that the
> users of a particular package keep complaining that they got screwed by an
> upgrade because of a situation like this, we should have the option of making
> a non-cofiguration file a conffile.
No, IMO then a warning should be added to the script saying that the users
should edit the config file in /etc instead.
Remco
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