Josh Triplett <j...@joshtriplett.org> writes:
> Suppose that packages ship sample configuration files *that exactly > match their defaults* (which should in general mean that everything is > commented out) in some standardized path under /usr/share/doc/$package/ > (e.g. examples/etc), that makes it easy to see what path the example > corresponds to in /etc. > > Then, we could have a package (e.g. "etc-commented-defaults") with an > on-installation trigger for that location, which automatically copies > over the defaults to /etc if they don't already exist, updates them if > they match the defaults, and (ideally) has a ucf-style mechanism for the > case where they've been changed. That package could also provide scripts > for easily seeing the diffs between your configuration and all the > defaults. > > Users who *don't* want that behavior can remove that package, and users > who *do* want that behavior could install it. Isnt this basically implementing the systemd approach, where a package would ship default configuration in /usr/lib/package (with all defaults, which dont need to be commented out) and the user can override by putting files in /etc/package -- either by copy-and-edit or just adding individual changes. (I think systemd-sysctl does this, also suppporting /run/ for temporary changes?) I think systemd can already tell you how the locations have been merged together (eg 'systemctl cat' does this), but perhaps what is missing is a way to see what changed on upgrade (you'd want to save the clean version from the _previous_ version of a package to be able to do that after the upgrade)?
