I am attempting to package a simple Squid redirector. To have any function whatsoever, a directive must be inserted into squid.conf declaring it as a redirector. I had envisioned a nice debconf question showing the line that would be inserted and asking for the admin's permission to do so.
It seems this is at odds with policy, which prohibutes the automated editing of conffiles (such as squid.conf). This is a bit ironic, since asking 'Would you like to enable this package by inserting a line FOO into /etc/squid.conf? [Y/n]' is much cleaner than printing a note 'You must run the script /usr/sbin/setupthispckage to enable this package'. While both of those would acomplish essensially the same thing, only one would be permissible by policy. What should I do in regards to editing this conffile? I have my heart set on making a nice, preferably debconfized, interactive question on whether to make the change, and then doing it. Requiring the user to perform extra steps outside of the package installation would be a major drag. Maybe squid.conf shouldn't be a conffile, as it's likely to be modified? I'm aware of many packages that automatically edit configuration files, but don't know of any that do that to _conffiles_. What is the reccomended course of action when a package must edit other packages' conffiles to be useful?
