Is there any way that the Bacula e-builds can *not* install updates to the files in /etc/bacula/? Every time an upgrade happens I have to keep deleting the "new" configuration files which would otherwise break my networked Bacula config. It would be fine installing these config files for a new install, but it's not necessary when upgrading as the only change is replacing your valid password with a randomly generated password.
No. That's why /etc/ is under CONFIG_PROTECT - to protect configuration files from being overwritten and changing new config files name to ._cfg0000_$progname.conf and let you merge those changes without breaking existing configuration. It would be painful to port your config files if there were any syntax changes between versions. For more informations about CONFIG_PROTECT see http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=5#doc_chap1 If i misunderstood your report and portage *literally* overwrites your configs, please reopen this bug. Unless you do, this bug is invalid.
Sorry, perhaps I didn't explain that properly. No config files are overwritten, but the .cfg0000_$progname.conf files are not necessary and are annoying to delete after every single upgrade. Because of the purpose of the config files, structure changes will seldom occur (none yet in the last couple of years) so I feel that it is unnecessary to keep supplying these config files during an upgrade when every user will need to delete the .cfg0000 files every time. Perhaps they could be supplied as .conf.sample files instead, if they could then be overwritten automatically?
No. This is intended behavior and merging configuration files (eg. by etc-update or dispatch-conf) is part of an upgrade process.