Update strategies (was Re: [TriLUG] Re: Newbie question reguarding YUM and Linux.)

Tanner Lovelace clubjuggler at gmail.com
Wed Jan 11 13:04:42 EST 2006


On 1/11/06, Jason Faulkner <jasonlf at gmail.com> wrote:
> (I haven't used RH in a while, so correct me if I'm wrong)
>
> Doesn't RH automatically replace config files saving the old as
> .rpmsave when they change? That to me is reason enough not to auto
> update.

The behavior of how rpm based distributions handle config files is fairly
complex and not well understood.  It all depends on if the files are
specified as config files in the RPM file list.  If they aren't, they are
blindly overwritten, no questions asked, nothing saved.  Since this
has to be done by hand (or at least up until I quit working with
RPM spec files regularly), there is lots of room for error here.

But, assuming the config files are correctly specified in the rpm spec
file, then it depends on if you specify %config(noreplace) (iirc, since
I'm probably rusty on this) then the new file will be added as
configfilename.rpmnew.  I don't remember under what conditions
it will replace the config file and rename the older one as
configfilename.rpmsave, but that exists too.

This all comes about because of the requirement for RPM packages
to be upgradable without user input.  Using something like debconf,
which Debian uses, gives you more options in how you want to treat
config files with the tradeoff that now you must babysit the process
much more, so it's still hard to say which one is better.  (And, most
likely, neither is really "better", they're just different philosophies.)

Cheers,
Tanner
--
Tanner Lovelace
clubjuggler at gmail dot com
http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
(fieldless) In fess two roundels in pale, a billet fesswise and an
increscent, all sable.



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