Bug#780797: openssh-server: modifies the user configuration

[Chris Knadle <Chris.Knadle@coredump.us>]

On 03/21/2015 03:33 PM, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote:
[...]
> Get a new firefox version, and the whole binary blob profile may
> completely be upgraded, old algos disabled etc. pp.
> 
>> So, as soon as the file is modified, it must be considered that
>> the configuration has been chosen by the admin and mustn't be
>> modified automatically. This is at least how debconf behaves.
>
> Even if you say that *any* modification of *any* part of the whole
> abstract configuration would need the whole configuration to be
> considered "locally modified", then this wouldn't work out in practise.

I'll give the example of what happens with the Exim MTA.  A new config
file comes down with the new version of Exim, and local modifications
are detected, whereby dpkg prompts for what to do.  The user/admin
chooses "keep local configuration", whereby the new configuration file
is stored locally as .dpkg-new and the user/admin chooses how to do
whatever config migration is necessary.  This way the user has their
original configuration and the new default, and they can do a diff to
figure out what needs to be altered.

What's happening now with openssh is that the config files are changed
in-place, so the user can't tell what happened after it already
happened... and yet that's the first question that was asked in this
bug.  :-/

   -- Chris

-- 
Chris Knadle
Chris.Knadle@coredump.us