Package: debhelper
Severity: wishlist
In Debian cron policy, it is noted that "The scripts or crontab entries in
these directories should check if all necessary programs are installed
before they try to execute them. Otherwise, problems will arise when a
package was removed but not purged since configuration files are kept on
the system in this situation."
I think a better solution might be a layer of indirection; a package
installing a cron job as a conffile in /etc/cron.d/foo should instead
- install the cron job conffile in /etc/debian-cron.d/foo
- installs a symlink from /etc/cron.d/foo to /etc/debian-cron.d/foo
(debian-cron.d is a placeholder name; I haven't thought of anything
better)
This means that when the package is removed, the cron job is automatically
disabled by its symlink being removed, but user changes are still
preserved in case the user installs the package again.
I think a similar solution for init scripts, if-up.d scripts, etc. might
be useful as well.
If you think that idea would improve Debian, I'd be happy to generate
patches to implement it.
-Tim Abbott
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