Re: handling moved configuration files

[George Georgalis <george%galis.org@localhost>]

On Wed 27 Oct 2010 at 08:25:36 AM +0200, Geert Hendrickx wrote:
>On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 01:58:12PM -0700, George Georgalis wrote:
>> Whether you use two versions or not, I suggest not automatically
>> converting the config file to the config directory. It can play havoc
>> with any configuration management that may be in place.
>> 
>> My suggestion would be runtime log messages that say "no config, see
>> /etc/dovecot.d/README" where one could find instructions to convert
>> dovecot.conf to doveconf.d files.
>
>
>There will never be "no config", as pkgsrc will install default config
>files in the new location (as it should for new installations).  So
>without manual intervention, dovecot will startup normally, but with a
>different configuration than before.
>
>Unless we deliberately break the default configuration so Dovecot won't
>startup with it, but that's different from what we usually do.
>
>
>An alternative is to make the rc.d script stop and print a message when
>*both* configuration files exist.  That actually looks like an elegant
>solution to me (works for both new and upgraded setups), but new rc.d
>scripts are not installed automatically by default, are they?

not usually, but for an upgrade... even then probably not a good
idea. (same reasons as not doing it in the initial install).
it seems like a good fix but shouldn't upstream address this
in their config parsing?

main thing is make it easy to diagnosis and fix if it breaks.

not sure if there is a standard for package names, personally I like
package, package2, package3, where package is a meta for the latest
and greatest supported one, but I think mostly, "package" is the
oldest one. makes it easy to not notice when new versions are out.

-George