Adduser devel - Aug 2009 - Bug#541620: /etc/adduser.conf is not handled at all

Package: adduser
Version: 3.110
Severity: normal

Hi.

It seems that /etc/adduser.conf is not marked as conffile for the  
package (but there''s some file in /usr/share... ?!)...
Why this?

There seems to be no other handling for merging changes from  
maintainers version, which makes it invisible for updates.

I''ve just seen that I had a totally outdated version of that file,  
missing many new config options.
Even if you use that /usr/share file as fallback,.. this is bad, as  
users won''t learn about new options, e.g.


Regards,
Chris.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
   APT prefers unstable
   APT policy: (500, ''unstable'')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.30-heisenberg (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages adduser depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]        1.5.27      Debian configuration  
management sy
ii  passwd                       1:4.1.4.2-1 change and administer  
password and
ii  perl-base                    5.10.0-24   minimal Perl system

adduser recommends no packages.

Versions of packages adduser suggests:
ii  liblocale-gettext-perl        1.05-4     Using libc functions for  
internati
ii  perl-modules                  5.10.0-24  Core Perl modules

-- debconf information:
* adduser/homedir-permission: false


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Hi,

On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 01:30:36AM +0200, Christoph Anton Mitterer
wrote:
> Package: adduser
> Version: 3.110
> Severity: normal
> 
> Hi.
> 
> It seems that /etc/adduser.conf is not marked as conffile for the  
> package (but there''s some file in /usr/share... ?!)...
> Why this?
the changelog states for adduser 3.29 (written some time in 2001):

  * /etc/adduser.conf is not marked as a conffile anymore. Instead, it
    is moved to /usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.conf and will
    be copied in postinst if it does not exist already.

but it doesn''t give any further explanation for it. 

Maybe we shoudl revert that decision...


J?rg


-- 
What did you do to the cat? It looks half-dead. -Schroedinger''s wife
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Hi.

On Mon, 2009-09-07 at 23:43 +0200, Joerg Hoh wrote:
>   * /etc/adduser.conf is not marked as a conffile anymore. Instead, it
>     is moved to /usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.conf and will
>     be copied in postinst if it does not exist already.
Perhaps that my fault, but why are _so many_ packages doing this? I mean
I could understand it for config files that are really standard and do
not even belong to one specific package, as they''re used by so many
programs (e.g. /etc/hosts,... or passwd,.. or that like),...
Why do we have this nice conffile mechanism then at all :)


Cheers,
Chris :)
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This one time, at band camp, Joerg Hoh said:
> Hi,
> 
> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 01:30:36AM +0200, Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote:
> > 
> > It seems that /etc/adduser.conf is not marked as conffile for the  
> > package (but there''s some file in /usr/share... ?!)...
> > Why this?
> 
> the changelog states for adduser 3.29 (written some time in 2001):
> 
>   * /etc/adduser.conf is not marked as a conffile anymore. Instead, it
>     is moved to /usr/share/doc/adduser/examples/adduser.conf and will
>     be copied in postinst if it does not exist already.
> 
> but it doesn''t give any further explanation for it. 
> 
> Maybe we shoudl revert that decision...
In 2001, we only had dpkg''s conffile handling, and we couldn''t
do any
editing of the config file in postinst if we shipped it in place in
the deb.  Now ucf exists, so it''s probably a good idea to revisit the
maintainer scripts.

Cheers,
-- 
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
|   ,''''`.                                            Stephen
Gran |
|  : :'' :                                        sgran at debian.org |
|  `. `''                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
|    `-                                     http://www.debian.org |
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retitle 541620 no conffile handling for /etc/adduser.conf - use ucf?
thanks

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 09:08:22AM +0100, Stephen Gran
wrote:
> Now ucf exists, so it''s probably a good idea to revisit the
> maintainer scripts.
Indeed ;)

Greetings
Marc

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Processing commands for control at bugs.debian.org:
> retitle 541620 no conffile handling for /etc/adduser.conf - use ucf?
Bug #541620 [adduser] /etc/adduser.conf is not handled at all
Changed Bug title to ''no conffile handling for /etc/adduser.conf - use
ucf?'' from ''/etc/adduser.conf is not handled at
all''
> thanks
Stopping processing here.

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-- 
541620: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=541620
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