Subject: Re: 'build.sh install=...' misses .../etc/release
To: Luke Mewburn <lukem@NetBSD.org>
From: Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 06/24/2004 08:19:45
Luke Mewburn <lukem@NetBSD.org> writes:

> On Thu, Jun 24, 2004 at 03:15:32AM +0200, Hubert Feyrer wrote:
>   | 
>   | > "install..." doesn't install the 'etc' set, which /etc/release is part of.
>   | 
>   | Uhu... can we still get "build.sh install=..." to update /etc/release?
>   | Would make a lot of sense to me...
> 
> As a special case, we probably could.
> Please send-pr the idea.

This begs the larger question of just /etc should be handled.
With postinstall, it's become clear that there are two kinds of files
in /etc:

  those that the user might change, and should be preserved

  those that are really logically part of /usr, but need to be in /,
  and should not normally be changed by the user

Of course, a user can change anything; this is really about whether
there is a reasonable expectation of such changes being preserved
across upgrades.

I put /etc/rc.d/* in the second category, and would argue that
anything that '/etc/postinstall fix' has been judged to be in that
category.

So perhaps the "not user changeable" files should go in the base set,
rather than etc.   Or a /usretc (not /usr/etc) directory to hold the
not-changeable stuff, but that's a disruptive change.

-- 
        Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>