Re: Bug#162120: Support #162120
On 08 Jul 2003 18:29:33 +0200, Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk> said:
> On Tue, 2003-07-08 at 17:47, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> This, then, has all the negatives that ajt seems to think that not
>> regenerating configuration files has. And would not work in the
>> corner case where mere presence of a file changes program behaviour
>> (though I do not know, off hand, if there are any instances of this
>> behaviour out there -- /etc/nologin does not have the problem,
>> since no one would rationally want to recreate that)
>>
>> So now we have an inconsistent way in which the project handles
>> user changes to conffiles -- dpkg and ucf try to ensure that user5
>> deletions are honoured, and otrher packages explicitly do not
>> honour these changes, by recreating the files -- even though these
>> packages can't ensure that the configuration file present on the
>> system always has relevant data, since since people can just echo
>> '' > /rtc/file
>>
>> So, instead of creating useful defaults, these programs would
>> rather that we change policy, even though changing policy does not
>> actually obviate the need for the defaults -- since one can just
>> empty the file rather than removing it.
> True.
>> > A counter-proposal from Manoj Srivastava was (explicitly?) to
>> > forbid the regeneration of configuration files that have been
>> > deleted, but this was shot down by AJT in no uncertain terms.
>>
>> It was? I only saw ajt coming in foaming at the mouth and spewing
>> expletives, and have some of his ranting countered by me, but
>> obviously your mileage varied.
> I suggest that we proceed in two stages. First, fill the lacuna in
> policy wording and describe what actually happens. This was the
> original proposal. It should not be too controversial because it
> can only help users.
I do not see this as a lacuna in policy, I see this as bug in
packages that are not following it, thus the change in policy is not
warranted.
> Second, propose a change to policy such that it explicitly forbid
> the recreation of configuration files that the admin has deleted.
We do not need a new proposal. This comes under preserving
user changes. Just like preserving the change created by
# echo '' > /etc/filename
> This idea was rejected by AJT before and presumably will be again.
> However, you might be able to get the proposal accepted.
I have no special status, really, nor does ajt, when it comes
to policy proposals: neither one of us has special veto powers.
manoj
--
Never laugh at live dragons. Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, "The
Hobbit"]
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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