Hi @ahayes, thanks for this report. You've made changes to a packaged config file. We very rarely, but occasionally, make changes to `local.ini` to change the commented-out defaults to their new values, or to add new values to it. This did happen with 2.2.0.
The Debian/Ubuntu warnings on the conffile are part of us adhering to Debian policy which [dictates ](http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s-config-files) that package upgrades MUST take care of preserving user changes to configuration files. We can't simultaneously do that while updating the contents of that file with new guidance or recommendations. You have two options available to you the way things are today: 1. Pass the appropriate option to `dpkg` from `apt` when doing an upgrade, as [documented here](https://raphaelhertzog.com/2010/09/21/debian-conffile-configuration-file-managed-by-dpkg/). In your case, I expect you'd prefer to have our new version installed as `local.ini.dpkg-dist`. This can be done with: ```bash $ apt-get -o Dpkg::Options::"-force-confdef" -o Dpkg::Options::"--force-confold" install --only-upgrade couchdb ``` * The first option tells dpkg to decide on its own whenever possible, prompting only when necessary, and overwriting any config files that have not been modified. * The second option says to not modify the current configuration file if changed, and install the new version from tha package with the `.dpkg-dist` suffix. * I've shown `install --only-upgrade couchdb` to limit this process to just the `couchdb` package. If you'd used `dist-upgrade` there, `apt-get` would proceed to apply the same approach across all packages, not just `couchdb`. You can use this if you want. 2. Another workaround is for you to simply not modify `local.ini`, and instead place new files inside of the `local.d` directory named with a `.ini` extension. These files are processed after all other files, including `local.ini`, [per the order described in the documentation](http://docs.couchdb.org/en/stable/config/intro.html#configuration-files). In this case, there will never be a change to `local.ini` that will conflict with your changes. I agree with your assessment that we should improve this going forward. Ideally, we wouldn't have `default.ini` or `local.ini` files at all, and would just use the contents of the `local.d` directory as provided by you, the end user. This would be part of a larger config subsystem rewrite that would address concerns like #777. I will open a new ticket on the roadmap for this (it's been under discussion for a while, but no roadmap ticket exists yet) and link back to this one so you can follow its progress in the future. Thanks again for your interest in Apache CouchDB! [ Full content available at: https://github.com/apache/couchdb/issues/1594 ] This message was relayed via gitbox.apache.org for [email protected]
