Bug#180770: generated files in /etc
On Thu, Feb 13, 2003 at 08:48:37AM +0900, Atsuhito Kohda wrote:
> > 1. they should not be conffiles
>
> Yes, I noticed this. One possible problem is they are
> not generated within tetex-base, they need tetex-bin to
> be generated.
>
> I'm not sure yet but they should be configuration files
> or they should be removed completely form tetex-base.
>
> We need more investigation and/or test...
The basic idea is that a file that should not be modified by hand, but is
modified by the system, should not be a conffile at all. The only
meaningful choice when dpkg asks seems to install the new one anyway.
As for the right package to put it in, you know better than myself about the
issues :)
> > 2. as generated files, they belong to /var, possibly with compat symlinks
> > from /etc if you don't want to change the source, but upstream should
> > consider moving them there too.
>
> Then why configuration files, which are generated in many
> cases, are under /etc ?
Many files in /etc are possible to generate with some tool, but also
modifiable by hand (eg. exim.conf). Many others are modifiable via debconf
scripts, which should honor local modifications made out of debconf. A
couple of other ones are in /etc because the system can't assume /var to be
writable at boot-time (/etc/mtab, /etc/network/ifstate, maybe others). I
can't think right now of any other valid case.
Regards,
--
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