Bug#703022: debian-policy: Appendix G: Diversion example faulty (doesn't work for conffiles)
Torsten Jerzembeck <toje@nightingale.ms.sub.org> writes:
> The example provided in Appendix G of the DPM regarding the removal of
> diversions doesn't work if the file diverted is a conffile. This is
> due to the fact that conffiles are not removed during a "remove", but
> but only during a "purge". As a "purge" implies a "remove" beforehand
> (the postrm script is called twice), the example will fail even on a
> "purge" with dpkg-divert refusing to clobber the existing conffile.
> IMO a footnote should be added alerting the user to this fact and
> providing a solution for this special case (use "purge" instead of
> "remove" as the first test).
The last time I looked at this (which was several years ago), diverting
conffiles had enough problems that it was tempting to just say that it
didn't work reliably. I wonder if we should explicitly recommend against
diverting conffiles, or if some of those problems have been cleaned up.
Some Debian sites, such as (IIRC) MIT, have extensive local infrastructure
based on diverted conffiles and have run into all sorts of weird edge
cases with them.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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