[Pkg-mediawiki-devel] Bug#388616: Upgrade

[Frank Küster]

Hi Romain, hi release team,

maybe I really missed something, but let's discuss this.  Would the
approach I suggest below be okay for the release team?

Romain Beauxis <toots at rastageeks.org> wrote:

>> Alternatively, you could just as well fix it. 
[...]
>> All nothing that requires magic.
>
> Exept that you forgot to mention how you will modify the configuration file to 
> change the $IP in /etc/mediawiki1.7/LocalSettings.php

I don't see the problem here.  Currently with the file being in
/var/lib/mediawiki1.7, the file is created by the local admin and moved
to its place.  He can as well move it to /etc/mediawiki1.7, and the
package or its maintainer scripts need not care about it in the future.

> And also how you will handle the move from /var/lib/mediawiki1.7 
> to /etc/mediawiki1.7: with or without notifing the administrator ?
> Then of course it needs a debconf warning.

This is in fact a problem.  Let's look at the cases:

a) Default install, symlink from /etc/mediawiki1.7/ to /var/...

   In this case we can just move the file from /var to /etc if it exists
   and do nothing if it doesn't (for both files).  This would be done in
   preinst, so that we can ship the symlink in the new deb.

b) The symlink is removed

   Literally, Policy requires us to respect local configuration changes
   including file removals.  However, I'd argue that removing the old,
   buggy symlink is not a configuration change (it didn't change
   anything), and I would move existing files from /var to /etc without
   a debconf note (i.e. handle this case like a default install).

c) There is a real file instead of the symlink

   Subcase 1) No file in /var

     no problem here, the preinst does nothing and the symlink from the
     deb is installed (probably it's already there, but I think dpkg
     will not complain).  Suddenly the wiki will work; I don't think
     this needs a debconf note.

   Subcase 2) also a file in /var

     This means that there is both a configuration file that is actually
     used and one that the admin obviously intended to be used.  In this
     case I would say the preinst should take a diff of the files and
     just remove the one in /var if they are the same.  If they are not,
     it could move the file from /var to
     /etc/mediawiki1.7/LocalSettings.php.moved-from-var.  The config
     script would check for the existence of that file and if it finds
     it, ask which one to use (and the postinst would act accordingly).

Plus a NEWS.Debian explaining the changes.

To me that looks a bit more complicated than one would like, but still
quite manageable, and acceptable for fixing a RC bug in etch.

What do you think?

Regards, Frank
-- 
Dr. Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)