Re: dovecot-sieve upgrade overwrote configuration

[Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net>]

On Sunday 23 July 2017 17:10:14 deb023@respiranto.de wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I use unattended-upgrades in order to keep my Debian stretch server up
> to date.
>
> This morning, an update for dovecot-sieve was installed among others.
> Previously, I had modified /etc/dovecot/conf.d/90-sieve.conf. During
> the update, the file was simply overridden by the (probably new)
> default configuration file, which I do not consider expected
> behaviour.
>
> In the log, I got via mail, I see:
>   Setting up dovecot-sieve (1:2.2.27-3+deb9u1) ...
>   Replacing config file /etc/dovecot/conf.d/90-sieve.conf with new
> version
>
> The respective file is not part of the package itself, rather it
> appears to be installed as specified in
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/dovecot-sieve.postinst, particularly by:
>   ucf --three-way /usr/share/dovecot/$conffile /etc/dovecot/$conffile
>   ucfr dovecot-sieve /etc/dovecot/$conffile
> where $conffile equals to `conf.d/90-sieve.conf'.
>
> Apparently, ucf is supposed to present some options to the user, none
> of which will obviously be chosen by unattended-upgrades. If the
> upgrade was to fail for this reason, unattended-upgrades would be
> supposed to run `dpkg --force-confold --configure -a' due to the
> default setting `Unattended-Upgrade::AutoFixInterruptedDpkg "true"'.
>
> Does somebody have an explanation or a future-proof solution for the
> depicted?
>
> I should probably note, that a 90-sieve.conf.ucf-dist appears to have
> been in place already before the recent upgrade.
>
> I somewhere found the idea to add
>   Dpkg::Options {
>     "--force-confdef";
>     "--force-confold";
>   }
> to 50-unattended-upgrades, however I doubt it applies to files not
> listed as conffiles.
>
>
> Greetings,
>  respiranto

I get bit that way occasionally, so in self-defense, I've been known
to "sudo chmod +i name-of-file", which makes such a file immutable.
If the update finds its hands tied, if it thinks its version is super 
important, then it can either log the squawk, email admin fussing about 
it, or just go away.  Most will not fuss, just leave a -distro or -new 
sitting beside the active file.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>