On Fri, Jul 03, 2009 at 01:51:53PM +0200, Bas Zoetekouw wrote: > Package: debian-policy > Version: 3.8.2.0 > Severity: wishlist > > Currently, policy is rather unclear on what to do with user-generated > content, such as the content of databases, on purge. Afaics, the only > cases that are mentioned are those of conffiles and log files (both of > which are to be removed at purge). > > I would argue that databses and such should NOT be removed on purge > without asking the user explicitly > > The immediate cause of me filing this bug, was the apt-get upgrade I > just did, which upgraded postgres-8.3 to postgres-8.4 on my system. > However, postgres apparently doesn't automatically migrate the user > data to the next version, but still postgress-8.3 was marked as
Well, there is the secondary isseu that packages should manage their upgrade gracefully. > candidate for autoremoval. When I autoremoved the packages (with > --purge), I did't notice postgres-8.3 in the list, an I certainly > didn't expect it to eat my databases without asking me first. > Sure, I should have paid more attention, but I still think that we > shoudl try to protect users like me from themselves liek this, and at > least _ask_ before removing databases (and other data). I tend to agree with you, but I think there is a more fundamental issue: user-generated content should not be stored in /var and should not created and removed by maintainer scripts. (In other word, clearly separated from automatically generated data like MTA queue, etc). Cheers, -- Bill. <[email protected]> Imagine a large red swirl here. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
