Package: scuttle Version: 0.7.4-7 Severity: serious User: debian...@lists.debian.org Usertags: piuparts Control: found -1 0.7.4-6
Hi, during a test with piuparts I noticed your package modifies shipped files. The modified file is a configuration file that is placed in /var This is forbidden by the policy, see http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-files.html#s-config-files 10.7.2: "Location: Any configuration files created or used by your package must reside in /etc. [...]" This file will be overwritten on upgrades/reinstallation, destroying local modifications. Violates 10.7.3. [following is the bug template for modifying conffiles, which may have some useful information, too] 10.7.3: "[...] The easy way to achieve this behavior is to make the configuration file a conffile. [...] This implies that the default version will be part of the package distribution, and must not be modified by the maintainer scripts during installation (or at any other time)." Note that once a package ships a modified version of that conffile, dpkg will prompt the user for an action how to handle the upgrade of this modified conffile (that was not modified by the user). Further in 10.7.3: "[...] must not ask unnecessary questions (particularly during upgrades) [...]" If a configuration file is customized by a maintainer script after having asked some debconf questions, it may not be marked as a conffile. Instead a template could be installed in /usr/share and used by the postinst script to fill in the custom values and create (or update) the configuration file (preserving any user modifications!). This file must be removed during postrm purge. ucf(1) may help with these tasks. See also http://wiki.debian.org/DpkgConffileHandling In https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2012/09/msg00412.html and followups it has been agreed that these bugs are to be filed with severity serious. debsums reports modification of the following files, from the attached log (scroll to the bottom...): /var/lib/scuttle/config_debconf.inc.php cheers, Andreas
scuttle_0.7.4-7.log.gz
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