Bug#150511: tetex-bin: the postinst fails to preserve user changes in /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf and others
Package: tetex-bin
Version: 1.0.7+20011202-7
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 11.7.3
Hi,
The postinst moves /etc/texmf/texmf.cnf, and
/etc/texmf/fmtutil.cnf out of the way, and creates new versions,
losing any user changes, in direct violation of policy. This is most
certainly not desired behaviour, since I had spent a lot of time
crafting the configuration files.
The relevant parts of the policy manual are quoted below.
manoj
-------------------------
11.7.1. Definitions
-------------------
configuration file
A file that affects the operation of a program, or provides site-
or host-specific information, or otherwise customizes the
behavior of a program. Typically, configuration files are
intended to be modified by the system administrator (if needed or
desired) to conform to local policy or to provide more useful
site-specific behavior.
`conffile'
A file listed in a package's `conffiles' file, and is treated
specially by `dpkg' (see Section 6.6, `Details of
configuration').
The distinction between these two is important; they are not
interchangeable concepts. Almost all `conffile's are configuration
files, but many configuration files are not `conffiles'.
Note that a script that embeds configuration information (such as most
of the files in `/etc/default' and `/etc/cron.{daily,weekly,monthly}')
is de-facto a configuration file and should be treated as such.
11.7.2. Location
----------------
Any configuration files created or used by your package must reside in
`/etc'. If there are several you should consider creating a
subdirectory of `/etc' named after your package.
If your package creates or uses configuration files outside of `/etc',
and it is not feasible to modify the package to use the `/etc', you
should still put the files in `/etc' and create symbolic links to
those files from the location that the package requires.
11.7.3. Behavior
----------------
Configuration file handling must conform to the following behavior:
* local changes must be preserved during a package upgrade, and
* configuration files must be preserved when the package is
removed, and only deleted when the package is purged.
The easy way to achieve this behavior is to make the configuration
file a `conffile'. This is appropriate only if it is possible to
distribute a default version that will work for most installations,
although some system administrators may choose to modify it. This
implies that the default version will be part of the package
distribution, and must not be modified by the maintainer scripts
during installation (or at any other time).
In order to ensure that local changes are preserved correctly, no
package may contain or make hard links to conffiles.[1]
======================================================================
-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux glaurung 2.4.17 #1 Fri Dec 21 21:06:24 CST 2001 i586
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (ignored: LC_ALL set)
Versions of packages tetex-bin depends on:
ii debianutils 1.16.3 Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii dpkg 1.9.21 Package maintenance system for Deb
ii ed 0.2-19 The classic unix line editor
ii libc6 2.2.5-6 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libkpathsea3 1.0.7+20011202-7 shared libkpathsea for teTeX
ii libpng2 1.0.12-3 PNG library - runtime
ii libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 1:2.95.4-9 The GNU stdc++ library
ii libtiff3g 3.5.5-6 Tag Image File Format library
ii libxaw7 4.1.0-17 X Athena widget set library
ii tetex-base 1.0.2+20011202-3 basic teTeX library files
ii xlibs 4.1.0-17 X Window System client libraries
ii zlib1g 1:1.1.4-1 compression library - runtime
-- no debconf information
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