Bug 26580 – etc-update and configuration

• Product: Portage Development
• Status: VERIFIED NEEDINFO

[Description mlmoser 2003-08-13 17:09:41 UTC]

I'm annoyed by etc-update allowing only overwriting each file with a new, blank
configuration.  There are two ways to do this:

1) You know the version of the app I have installed at the moment, bring down
the original configuration file for that version, 'diff -u [oldoriginal]
[oldconfigfile] | patch [newconfigfile]`
2) Store a ._cfg_original_[version]_[configfile] as a copy of the original
config on each download.  On etc-update do a `diff -u
._cfg_original_[version]_[configfile] [configfile] | patch [newconfigfile]`

I recommend that you allow the user to do a mv or a patch, and that patches do
option 2 if possible and resort to option 1 if the original config file is
missing.  Also, allow an option to spit out a diff paginated by less or more
between the oldconfig and the neworiginal, just so that we can see what we're
doing.  An option to llow the thing to just mv -i any file that is identical to
the original is also a nice idea.

This is great for when a new group file comes down and a new passwd comes down,
and I get my normal user wiped OUT and have to log in as root, recreate the
user, make sure his uid is set right, and put him back in all the groups he was in.

[Comment 1 Nicholas Jones (RETIRED) 2003-08-15 17:12:28 UTC]

I'm not really sure what you're talking about.
What version of portage are you using?

[Comment 2 Nicholas Jones (RETIRED) 2003-12-28 22:06:29 UTC]

Old.

[Comment 3 Marius Mauch (RETIRED) 2007-01-11 11:00:50 UTC]

Closing due to old age