On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 9:04 AM, Yamakaky <yamakaky@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Let divide the problem, with a package containing /var/lib/prog/ and > /etc/prog/conf created by tmpfiles : > > - If the program wrote to /var, then there is no problem, as pacman does > not remove a non empty dir anyway. > - If it doesn't, there is a problem as /var/lib/prog will not be deleted. > - The config file will not be deleted by pacman anyway. > > I can't find a solution now, I will think at it. I actually do not even see the problem:-) tempfiles.d for files in /etc are a bandaid in the first place: They are meant to work around daemons that absolutely insist on having a configuration file and do not fall back gracefully to a default configuration without one. A tempfiles.d for /var is more permanent since daemons will need to have directories set up for their use (with proper permissions, etc.). But even when a packge ships those tempfiles.d snippets, those will only take effect if the files/directories are *missing*. Nobody will mess with either /etc nor /var up to the point where you screwed up your system yourself by deleting things that are actually needed. So nothing prevents having /var/lib/whatever and /etc/whatever.conf in the pacman package and shipping a tempfiles.d snippet to create those if they ever go missing. Nobody will muck around in your /etc nor /var (at least as long as your system is sane;-), pacman -Qo /var/whatever will just work as well, even after a factory reset. If the user uninstalls the package, then the tmpfiles.d snippet will also be gone, so no problem there. > Being able to just delete /etc/<package> and reboot/restart the program > to reset its config isn't "only useful in special situations". As Tobias > said, arch is configured by users who can make mistakes. Factory reset > isn't only for the entire system. And it doesn't harm the other users. Well, I would not delete /etc/<package> and then reboot, I would just cp /usr/lib/factory/etc/<package> /etc/<package> and restart the service:-) Having a directory with the pristine distro-provided configuration is a really nice thing. Just being able to run a simple diff to see all the changes you ever did to /etc is really nice. Currently that is severely limited in a default arch setup by the factory being almost empty though:-) Best Regards, Tobias
