On Sun, Jan 03 2010, Russ Allbery wrote: > Felipe Sateler <fsate...@gmail.com> writes: > >> Do conffiles have to be regular files? Policy does not seem to be >> explicit about this (although I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this), >> it seems to just talk about "files". > > I don't believe that listing symlinks as conffiles works properly at the > moment. See #421344. It doesn't make any sense to list a directory as a > conffile. I think that exhausts all the non-regular files that can be in > a Debian package.
A conffile is, after all, a configuration file. As such, it contains configuration data, and user changes to such data is what policy is concerned about preserving. Merely the presence or absence of a inode or a link does not rise to the level of "configuration data", in my view. Why add restrictions on what people can do? Now, if the target of the symlink is under /etc, then the target is really the configuration file, if the target does not lie under /etc, we have a policy violation. > Symlinks as conffiles should ideally work. I think it's just a bug in > dpkg that they don't. While it could be made to work, I am not sure I agree that the result would require the same protection in policy. I am willing to be persuaded otherwise on this. manoj -- "We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection." -Sidney Poitier Manoj Srivastava <sriva...@acm.org> <http://www.golden-gryphon.com/> 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-dpkg-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org