On Wed, Nov 03, 2010 at 11:59:27AM +0100, Harald Jenny wrote:
[...]
> Our current idea is to do the installation, run the program in
> postinst to check for config errors and if we find some we issue a
> warning message and cease to restart the daemon - or does anybody
> have a better idea?
Basically the same, just more reusable, would be to check the
configuration as part of the start/restart/reload sections of the
new version's initscript. I believe this is the same mechanism
Apache has been using for years to help prevent killing httpd when
you try to reload a broken configuration without validating its
syntax (or when some of its dependent pieces may have gone missing).
Obviously this still leaves the admin in the unfortunate position of
having to solve his configuration problem on the spot or roll back
to a previous package version.
Alternatives would be (more user friendly) come up with a
configuration translator if all existing options can have a 1-to-1
transform/mapping to new options or syntax, or (less user friendly)
change package names with the new version and upload a final-ish
package of the old version which displays loud messages about what
the new package name is and how to manually transition to it.
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