Date: 13 Feb 2001 08:29:06 -0500 From: Greg Troxel <gdt@fnord.ir.bbn.com> To: Warner Losh <imp@harmony.village.org> Cc: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>, John Reynolds <jjreynold@home.com>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: sshd in 4.2-STABLE Message-ID: <rmilmrar9st.fsf@fnord.ir.bbn.com> In-Reply-To: Warner Losh's message of "Mon, 12 Feb 2001 14:24:23 -0700" References: <200102120843.f1C8hhM03375@earth.backplane.com> <1843641235.20010212104321@road.omskelecom.ru> <Pine.BSF.4.31.0102112212490.55276-100000@mx.dmz.orem.verio.net> <14983.29328.298241.606895@whale.home-net> <200102122124.f1CLONW31606@harmony.village.org>
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Warner Losh <imp@harmony.village.org> writes:
> In message <200102120843.f1C8hhM03375@earth.backplane.com> Matt Dillon writes:
> : ... or maybe installworld should just check to see if /etc/pam.conf is
> : the unmodified older version and overwrite it with /usr/src/etc/pam.conf
> : by default, rather then create little gotchas for people trying to
> : upgrade. Hmmmmmm.
> This would violate POLA worse than having it break, I think.
The Debian package system does something like this, and I found it
very helpful for the brief time I ran a GNU/Linux system. IIRC,
packages distinguished between regular files (that weren't expected to
change) and configuration files. When upgrading to a new version of a
package, the rule was that if a config file was unchanged (same md5)
from the installed package, it was replaced by the new version. If
changed, the user was asked to merge/cope. Also, config files were
left on pkg_delete (well, dpkg --remove), unless one asked to have
them removed.
I realize we are talking about the base system, but the concept is the
same. This could perhaps be done by having a db of md5 sums of files
under /etc that were 'installed' from the source tree (installworld,
from-scratch install, mergemaster, automatic upgrade), and have
upgrade procedures replace files that match (and that therefore have
not been modified).
While realizing that the instructions which tell you to merge /etc are
clear:
To me, POLA says that if I install 3.3, don't muck with stuff, and
upgrade to 4.2, then I should have 4.2 without having to think about
stuff I never mucked with (it's fair enough to have to understand
stuff I changed).
Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>
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