Package with config files - best practices?
Hi !
To simplyfy my everday's life I sometimes create custom deb packages
containing only dependencies on other packages so I can quickly set up a
system for i.e. mail server. It would be a great thing if I could use
such packages to configure everything, too. For example my mail-server
package shall contain dependencies on postfix, courier-imap etc. as
well as configuration files for postfix and courier. This way, setting a
server would be as easy as single apt-get install. Of course, some files
still requires tweaking after installation, but still it's nice to have
them preconfigured.
Currently I see 2 possibilities:
1. I've discovered that Replaces: field of debian/control allows to
overwrite other package's files. I can put e.g. postfix in Replaces:
field, and include config files in my package.
It actually works, but has some drawbacks - files logically belonging to
another package changes its owner. Actually it sounds like abusing
Replaces:.
2. Make a postinst script modify all the config files. This sounds like
a bit of shell coding to me - for example, to avoid replacing manually
tweaked files. I'm too lazy for that :)
Are there any tools (beside grep/sed/awk/perl ;) ) to help ?
Any other useful practices ?
Best Regards,
Przemyslaw
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