[Pkg-pdns-maintainers] Bug#681248: pdns-server: Fatal error: Trying to set unexisting parameter 'gmysql-host'

[Josip Rodin]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 04:55:34PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 11:19:41AM +0100, Josip Rodin wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 08:49:13AM +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 01:28:30PM +0100, Josip Rodin wrote:
> > > > /etc/powerdns/pdns.d/pdns.simplebind should be shipped in
> > > > /usr/share/doc/pdns-server and the postinst should copy it into
> > > > the live location when $1 is "configure" and there is no $2.
> > > 
> > > Unfortunately, the solution is not _that_ easy since with this
> > > solution, pdns.simplebind will not become a dpkg conffile, making tens
> > > of lines of fragile code necessary to handle the file in the
> > > maintainer scripts.
> > 
> > But do you really need the file to be a conffile? You didn't have it
> > *at all* up to its sudden inclusion, and it wasn't a major problem,
> > so how would it not being a conffile suddenly become a problem?
> 
> Before its addition, PowerDNS did not run after installation and
> needed manual configuration. It will probably be changed in every
> installation, so it is adviseable to have it as a conffile.

But if you're adding something so bare/fragile/whatever that everyone
will probably modify it, what is the purpose of adding conffile handling?
If you already know that the file will probably be modified, then you
already know that it's not supposed to be a conffile.

Please read
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s10.7.3

  [...] a conffile [...] is appropriate only if it is possible to distribute
  a default version that will work for most installations [...]

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