[config-package-dev] check_file problems

[Jonathan Reed]

Hi Alex, 

Thanks for using config-package-dev.  The purpose of check_file() is to ensure that the file you're transforming has not been modified since it was installed, to avoid, e.g., accidentally incorporating changes you might have made on your build server or in build chroots.  As you may have seen from the man page, you can use another file as a source, but it needs to be a packaged file.  

Transformations are designed to change upstream config files in a deterministic way.  If you're trying to transform an unpackaged file, you almost certainly want to use a diversion instead.  Because even if generating /etc/fstab is going to be deterministic and idempotent across reinstalls on _your_ machine, or even a group of machines you maintain, that doesn't apply to other Debian/Ubuntu users.

One of the other maintainers may chime in with other suggestions or workarounds, and we may look at the possibility of disabling this check at build time, but in general, I think you want to see if a diversion/displacement will suffice in this case.

-Jon
for the config-package-dev maintainers and Debathena project

On Jun 4, 2013, at 4:38 AM, Alex Waite wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> First off, config-package-dev has been a huge help to me. A big 'thank 
> you' to the writers/maintainers.
> 
> I've used c-p-d successfully to displace quite a few config files. 
> However, when I attempt to transform /etc/fstab, I run into trouble. On 
> build, dh_configpackage gets quite angry and bails:
> 
>   dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern /etc/fstab
>   /etc/fstab is not owned by any package
>   make: *** [binary] Error 255
>   dpkg-buildpackage: error: debian/rules binary gave error exit status 2
> 
> Indeed, apt-file confirms that no package "owns" /etc/fstab.
> 
> Reading the docs did not yield a solution for unowned config files.
> 
> I've glanced in dh_configpackage and `sub check_file` looks to be 
> throwing the error. I'm not seeing any options I can pass to 
> dh_configpackage to get around this.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> ---Alex
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