[Pkg-openldap-devel] Bug#888440: Bug#888440: "dpkg-reconfigure slapd" fails if backup directory already exists

[Floris Bos]

On 01/25/2018 05:54 PM, Ryan Tandy wrote:
>
>> Nor an option to simply not move the thing, but delete it. We already 
>> have a dump of it, right?
>
> Not sure. We have a dump of the config, but I don't think it dumps the 
> data, does it?

That's pretty confusing as well.

You are right, in this case it only seems to have copied configuration 
to dump_database_destdir
While the documentation suggests that directory is meant to dump the 
whole database to on upgrades:

==
Template: slapd/dump_database
Type: select
__Choices: always, when needed, never
Default: when needed
_Description: Dump databases to file on upgrade:
  Before upgrading to a new version of the OpenLDAP server, the data from
  your LDAP directories can be dumped into plain text files in the
  standard LDAP Data Interchange Format.
  .
  Selecting "always" will cause the databases to be dumped
  unconditionally before an upgrade. Selecting "when needed" will only
  dump the database if the new version is incompatible with the old
  database format and it needs to be reimported. If you select "never",
  no dump will be done.

Template: slapd/dump_database_destdir
Type: string
Default: /var/backups/slapd-VERSION
_Description: Directory to use for dumped databases:
  Please specify the directory where the LDAP databases will be exported.
  In this directory, several LDIF files will be created which correspond
  to the search bases located on the server. Make sure you have enough
  free space on the partition where the directory is located. The first
  occurrence of the string "VERSION" is replaced with the server version
  you are upgrading from.

==

This can confuse unwitting users into thinking they do have a backup of 
everything, as the directory do is filled with .ldif files.


Yours sincerely,

Floris Bos