Re: Configuration DB

[Cameron Hutchison <camh+dl@xdna.net>]

Once upon a time John Hasler said...
> Cameron Hutchison writes:
> > Hard disk crash. I've gone through the same pain as the original poster.
> 
> So you mean restore, not reinstall.

Well, both. I restored my system by reinstalling it.

> Any package that overwrites your changes to config files and/or uses
> debconf as a registry is seriously buggy.

For some packages, I will maintain its configuration through debconf,
since I have no desire to understand another config file syntax and
debconf is used well by the package to generate a config file given some
basic information.

If I am to change some of that basic information, it needs to be in
debconf. Therefore I need to be able to reload the debconf database from
a backup. That is, it is not enough just to restore /etc. That will get
the system back up and running with the same configuration at that point
in time, but future reconfiguration through debconf will not work.

> > How can you backup your debconf answers and restore them in such a way
> > that it replaces re-entering the answers?
> 
> Back up /var/cache/debconf

While I accept that this is the correct answer, surely this is the wrong
place to put this sort of data?

According to the filesystem hierarchy standard (FHS) at 
http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/fhs/fhs-5.2.html ,
it says:

    /var/cache is intended for cached data from applications. Such
    data is locally generated as a result of time-consuming I/O or
    calculation. The application must be able to regenerate or restore
    the data. Unlike /var/spool, the cached files can be deleted without
    data loss. The data should remain valid between invocations of the
    application and rebooting the system.

I dont see how the debconf application can regenerate or restore this
data should it be deleted.

More distressing for me is that I dont include /var/cache in my backups.
According to FHS, I should not have to.

Thanks for your answers, John.

CHeers