Overwriting config files

[Anders F Björklund]

Ryan Schmidt wrote:

>> I have had some issues lately with upgrades overwriting config files 
>> (postfix, apache2).
>> Should I create a ticket for these issues, or is this being fixed in 
>> this ticket:
>> I noticed this ticket: 
>> http://trac.macports.org/projects/macports/ticket/2365
>
> That ticket is 3 years old and is for general MacPorts functionality 
> to support non-volatile default config files. Since it's so old, I 
> doubt anything is being done with it at the moment. I'm also not 
> convinced any functionality needs to be added to MacPorts base to 
> support this.

The ticket mentions the need to have install/uninstall scripts (i.e. 
not do it in activate/deactivate since that only works with images), 
and that functionality is needed in order for the *.sample approach to 
be useful. It's another old ticket, though: 
http://trac.macports.org/projects/macports/ticket/1068

For the configuration files, it would be a great benefit to the 
packaging targets if there was a way to specify which ones are 
conffiles. Probably something like "destroot.conffiles", similar to the 
existing "destroot.keepdirs". This would signify that the files in 
question are *not* to be overwritten...

So all these Tickets are related (#777 is another one), and the 
implementation of these missing features should be taken to the 
macports-dev list. So to me, it seems that at least two new pieces of 
functionality are needed to be added to the MacPorts base in order to 
support this ?

--anders