On 1/11/06, Jason Faulkner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > (I haven't used RH in a while, so correct me if I'm wrong) > > Doesn't RH automatically replace config files saving the old as > .rpmsave when they change? That to me is reason enough not to auto > update.
The behavior of how rpm based distributions handle config files is fairly complex and not well understood. It all depends on if the files are specified as config files in the RPM file list. If they aren't, they are blindly overwritten, no questions asked, nothing saved. Since this has to be done by hand (or at least up until I quit working with RPM spec files regularly), there is lots of room for error here. But, assuming the config files are correctly specified in the rpm spec file, then it depends on if you specify %config(noreplace) (iirc, since I'm probably rusty on this) then the new file will be added as configfilename.rpmnew. I don't remember under what conditions it will replace the config file and rename the older one as configfilename.rpmsave, but that exists too. This all comes about because of the requirement for RPM packages to be upgradable without user input. Using something like debconf, which Debian uses, gives you more options in how you want to treat config files with the tradeoff that now you must babysit the process much more, so it's still hard to say which one is better. (And, most likely, neither is really "better", they're just different philosophies.) Cheers, Tanner -- Tanner Lovelace clubjuggler at gmail dot com http://wtl.wayfarer.org/ (fieldless) In fess two roundels in pale, a billet fesswise and an increscent, all sable. -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
