Debian Bug report logs - #163657
dpkg: Support taking over conffiles from other packages

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Thomas Hood" <jdthood@mail.com>

To: "Debian Bug Tracking System" <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: dpkg: should support conffile hijacking

Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 14:19:22 +0200

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.10.4
Severity: wishlist

Suppose you have a package, foo, with conffile /etc/foo,
and it is replaced by package foo2, which handles /etc/foo
by means of maintainer scripts.

The following problem arises:
   1. Remove (not purge) foo
   2. Install foo2
   3. Purge foo
The last step purges /etc/foo, even though this is now
managed by foo2!

At present, policy says that foo2 shouldn't touch /etc/foo,
since it is a conffile (belonging to foo).  However, there
are cases where one wants to switch from managing some
configuration file, perhaps one with a standard name, the
conffile way to managing it the maintainer script way.
One such case is bsd-ftpd, which replaces ftpd.
(See #68703.)  To support this, it would appear that dpkg
needs to be extended.

There are different ways to do this.  One way is to add
a field to the control file which declares that a package
will use a certain filename for configuration purposes.
The presence of this field in foo2's control file, e.g.,
    Config-Files: /etc/foo
would cause dpkg to remove /etc/foo from foo's list of
conffiles.  Then, /etc/foo would not be deleted when foo
was purged.

Alternatively, a new field could be invented that declared
a stronger conflict that Conflicts: does -- namely, a
conflict that requires purging of the conflicting package
before installation of the replacing one.

--
Thomas Hood

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.0
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux thanatos 2.4.20-pre8-ac1 #1 Mon Sep 30 10:20:53 CEST 2002 i686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=

Versions of packages dpkg depends on:
ii  dselect                       1.10.4     a user tool to manage Debian packa
ii  libc6                         2.2.5-14.2 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an

-- no debconf information

Message #14 received at 163657@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk>

To: 163657@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Martin Michlmayr <tbm@cyrius.com>

Subject: Re: The package "cruft" needs help

Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 20:03:40 +0100

Re: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=debian-devel&m=107798605421212&w=2

Anthony Towns wrote:
> There've been other related ideas about how to register random files
> with dpkg, but afaik none of them have gone anywhere.

Martin Michlmayr wrote:
> Yeah, I requested such a feature a long time ago (2000), and later
> filed a bug (#213907).

I also filed a wish (#163657) for this.  Something like this is
needed so that one package can hijack as a configuration file
what used to belong to another package as a conffile.

I'm sending these cross references in to #163657 for the record.

Martin Michlmayr's wish:
    #213907: Dynamic registration of files to packages
AJT's proposal:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-policy/1998/debian-policy-199804/msg00089.html).
AJT's remark that this is also needed by the cruft program:
    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=debian-devel&m=107798556927588&w=2

--
Thomas

Message #21 received at 234286-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>

To: 234286-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#234286: debian-policy: log file should be in packages' file list

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 16:05:47 -0500

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 00:16:28 +0000, Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> said: 

> On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 07:31:15AM +0800, Dan Jacobson wrote:
>> Package: debian-policy Version: 3.6.1.0 Severity: wishlist
>>
>> Idea: programs that will make log files should be required to list
>> the basic log file (before rotations, etc.) so that dpkg -L package
>> will list them, and dpkg -S will find them.

> There is no mechanism in dpkg for packages to do this yet, so
> there's no point in you filing this request against policy. Sorry. I
> recommend that this bug be closed. (I believe that the request is
> already in dpkg's huge bug list somewhere, so no need to add to it
> with a reassign; it's certainly a reasonably well-known wishlist
> among the developers.)

> If a package attempted to fulfil your request using only the current
> mechanisms, then the log file would be erased on every upgrade. This
> is why an extension to dpkg is needed.

	Closing the report.

	manoj
-- 
Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly...  --Larry Wall in
<2969@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@debian.org>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C

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