Bug#433422: exim4: complains inappropriately about DEBCONFsomethingDEBCONF on upgrade

[Bernhard Kuemel]

Package: exim4
Followup-For: Bug #433422


Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages at zugschlus.de> wrote:

On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 06:32:55PM -0500, Reid Priedhorsky wrote:

>> I don't understand why it makes sense for your searching code to look 
>> for DEBCONF in those files -- no sane configuration would ever include 
>> them, and they are easy to generate in the process of normal admin tasks.
>
>And it is easy to either disable the warning, or to remove the
>offending files. _MUCH_ easier than having update-exim4.conf parsing
>the configuration, just to take care of people who are too stupid to
>read the docs.

I got quite confused about this error message:

DEBCONFsomethingDEBCONF found in exim configuration. This is most probably
caused by you upgrading to exim4 4.67-3 or later without accepting the
suggested conffile changes. Please read
/usr/share/doc/exim4-config/NEWS.Debian.gz for 4.67-2 and 4.67-4

I could not remember having rejected a config file change. I
read the mentioned sections in NEWS.Debian.gz and was still 
confused how to remedy the situation. Searching the bug 
reports revealed the problem. The *dpkg-old files. 
Everything was actually fine, except the warning suggesting 
a faulty situation.

I suggest changing the warning to something like:

DEBCONFsomethingDEBCONF found in exim configuration. This 
is most probably caused by you upgrading to exim4 4.67-3 or
later without accepting the suggested conffile changes. Or 
you may just have some *.dpkg-old files lying around with 
DEBCONFsomethingDEBCONF in them. Deleting them will no 
longer cause them to issue this warning.
Please read /usr/share/doc/exim4-config/NEWS.Debian.gz for
4.67-2 and  4.67-4

This simple text change does not require complicated 
programming and reduces confusion and stress of admins.

Thanks, Bernhard


-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (700, 'testing'), (650, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.17.6
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash