First, I need a bit more clarification/confirmation that my understanding of the challenge we're facing is correct, and then I'd like to see any prior discussion & documentation (in the wiki?) we have on these issues (or help write it if it doesn't exist yet).
On Sat, Apr 10, 2004 at 02:45:19PM +0200, Free Ekanayaka wrote: > Well, maybe a CDD configuration package should be not considered in > the same way as ordinary packages. > > I think will all agree that one of the main goals of a CDD, a part > from barely installing a specific subset of packages, is to provide a > properly tuned configuration for such subset. > > IMHO the two best strategies for this porpoise are: > > 1) feed the debconf database with custom values and then run > dpkg-reconfigure --all In prior discussions, is this what has been referred to as "pre-seeding"? What are the arguments to date for/against this? > 2) use cfengine to directly tune or create configuration files > > AFAIK these two methods were both introduced by Skolelinux. > > The second one is needed where the first can't deal, and even though > CDDs developers should cooperate with the maintainers wherever is > possible to introduce or improve the debconf support for a given > package, my opinion is that there will be always cases which can't be > cleanly handled with the first strategy. Fair enough, but as much as possible, we try approach #1? > A simple real life example from DeMuDi: I have to turn on the kernel > lowlatency flag at boot time, and the best way to do it is by editing > /etc/sysctl.conf adding a single line (kernel.lowlatency = 1). > > The sysctl.conf conffile belongs to the procps package, but of course > introducing the debconf support for all possible kernel variables it's > not feasible, so that I ended up using the cfengine strategy. I see. I can't think of any decent alternative, either. I'd like to see the prior discussion on this too, for reference. > IMHO if someone wants to install a CDD, it means that he/she wants to > have a pre-canned working system, which hopefully automatically > configures itself. > > Thus when installing the CCD configuration package > (e.g. debian-edu-config, debian-med-config, demudi-confg, etc.), the > default answer to the question "do you want to modify this other > package's conf file?" should be "yes". Got it. > I don't know if understand correctly, but AFAIK when a new version of > package provides a new version for one of its conffiles *and* the > previously installed version of such confile has been modified, then > dpkg *do* stop asking if you want to keep the locally modified version > or replace it with the new one. Surely you mean only in the symlink case being discussed? When a package provides a new conf file and the old has been modified, dpkg will normally prompt for whether you want to keep/replace the old. But what I've been hearing earlier in this thread is that if the admin makes the conf file a symlink to another conf file instead of merely modifying the conf file, then this mechanism breaks. Ben -- ,-. nSLUG http://www.nslug.ns.ca [EMAIL PROTECTED] \`' Debian http://www.debian.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] ` [ gpg 395C F3A4 35D3 D247 1387 2D9E 5A94 F3CA 0B27 13C8 ] [ pgp 7F DA 09 4B BA 2C 0D E0 1B B1 31 ED C6 A9 39 4F ]
