Hello, On Sun 26 Aug 2018 at 12:41PM +0200, Gioele Barabucci wrote: > For example, apticron (the program) has recently switched to a stateless > configuration. The default configuration is shipped in > `/usr/lib/apticron/apticron.conf` and the local configuration is written > by the sysadmin (if they want) in `/etc/apticron.conf`. At the same time > the maintscript of apticron (the package) says > > > purge) > [...] > if [ -d /etc/apticron ] ; then > rm -rf /etc/apticron || true > fi > [...] > > That means that purging the package will remove also all the > configuration files provided by the sysadmin. Should this be the > normality or should this be avoided? > > When there was only one configuration file for both the default and > sysadmin's settings this could had been a sensible way to purge the > package. With these new stateless packages I'm not so sure that removing > user-created configuration files makes sense. They are purely > user-provided data and will never conflict with future > (re-)installations of the same package. Thank you for raising this. An important factor, since we're talking about the deletion of files, is what local administrators will expect to happen. It's difficult to say! On the one hand, people are used to the idea that purging a Debian package nukes its configuration in /etc. On the other hand, people are used to the idea that purging a Debian package does not touch files the package did not install. I am really not sure. -- Sean Whitton
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature