Should debian policy require to use debconf for postinst scripts?
I have been discussing quite a lot on different debian mailing list on a
way to automate debian installation. The final and almost unfiform
answer was to use debconf in non-interactive mode.
The technical reason is that due to use of tty the following command
does not work :
dpkg -i pakace << EOF
input1
input2
EOF
NB : Instead of dpkg, you can put dpk-reconfigure, apt-get install, ....
Problem is always the same.
Besides, debconf avoid to input the same answer over and over which is fine.
So I went and tried the suggested procedure:
1)An interactive install on one machine,
2) Save /var/lib/debconf/* to the initial install tgz,
3) Configure debconf in non-interactive mode on the new platform,
Reallity is however a little less simple as in order for this to work,
each package postinst scrip should use the debconf procedure. While most
of them do, some packages do not and inputs must be entered.
So far the following packages do not follow the rule :
1) lilo,
2) wu-ftpd,
3) php4-* pacakges,
4) bind
As you can see, these packages are quite common ones. So I opened a bug
report asking to use debconf in postintall procedure and was answered
that this is a feature request or even "never as long as I am the
package maintainer". In the last case, I politely asked for advice on a
way to automate installation procedure and was answered that it was not
feasible.
I think many people have tried to automate installation and have been
beaten by this problem of being unable to automatically answer the
question asked during packages installation. If debconf indeed propose a
non-interactive mode, it also express a concern.
Problem is that a working solution does not exist and I'm stuck with my
problems for a few but important packages.
So could the debian policy regarding package postinst script ask either
to use debconf for automatic install or at least provide a mean to user
to answer question asked by postinst script to be entered via scripts or
files but no typing required.
Thanks for any comment and sorry if that has already been discussed.
--
__
/ ` Eric Valette - Canon CRF
/-- __ o _. Product Dev. Group Software Team Leader
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E-mail: valette@crf.canon.fr http://www.crf.canon.fr
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