UCFR(1) Debian GNU/Linux manual UCFR(1)
NAME
ucfr - Update Configuration File Registry: associate packages with configuration files
SYNOPSIS
ucfr [options] <Package> <Path to configuration file>
DESCRIPTION
Where Package is the package associated with the configuration file (and, in some sense, its owner), and Path to configuration file is the
full path to the location (usually under /etc) where the configuration file lives, and is potentially modified by the end user. Please note
that usually this means that we register actual files, and not symbolic links to files. ucfr will follow symbolic links and register the
real file, and not the symbolic link.
This script maintains an association between configuration files and packages, and is meant to help provide facilities that dpkg provides
conffiles for configuration files and not shipped in a Debian package, but handled by the postinst by ucf instead. This script is idempo-
tent, associating a package to a file multiple times is not an error. It is normally an error to try to associate a file which is already
associated with another package, but this can be overridden by using the --force option.
OPTIONS
-h, --help
Print a short usage message
-n, --no-action
Dry run. Print the actions that would be taken if the script is invoked, but take no action.
-d [n], --debug [n]
Set the debug level to the (optional) level n (n defaults to 1). This turns on copious debugging information.
-p, --purge
Removes all vestiges of the association between the named package and the configuration file from the registry. The association must
already exist; if the configuration file is associated with some other package, an error happens, unless the option --force is also
given. In that case, the any associations for the configuration file are removed from the registry, whether or not the package name
matches. This action is idempotent, asking for an association to be purged multiple times does not result in an error, since
attempting to remove an non-existent association is silently ignored unless the --verbose option is used (in which case it just
issues a diagnostic).
-v, --verbose
Make the script be very verbose about setting internal variables.
-f, --force
This option forces operations requested even if the configuration file in consideration is owned by another package. This allows a
package to hijack a configuration file from another package, or to purge the association between the file and some other package in
the registry.
--state-dir /path/to/dir
Set the state directory to /path/to/dir instead of the default /var/lib/ucf. Used mostly for testing.
USAGE
The most common case usage is pretty simple: a single line invocation in the postinst on configure, and another single line in the postrm
to tell ucfr to forget about the association with the configuration file on purge (using the --purge option) is all that is needed (assum-
ing ucfr is still on the system).
FILES
/var/lib/ucf/registry, and /var/lib/ucf/registry.X, where X is a small integer, where previous versions of the registry are stored.
/etc/ucf.conf
EXAMPLES
If the package foo wants to use ucfr to associate itself with a configuration file foo.conf, a simple invocation of ucfr in the postinst
file is all that is needed:
ucfr foo /etc/foo.conf
On purge, one should tell ucf to forget about the file (see detailed examples in /usr/share/doc/ucf/examples):
ucfr --purge foo /etc/foo.conf
If you want to remove all the conf files for a given package foo, the simplest way is to use ucfq. For example
ucfq -w foo | cut -d : -f 1 | while read cfile ; do ucfr -v $cfile ; done
SEE ALSO
ucf(1), ucf.conf(5).
AUTHOR
This manual page was written Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system.
Debian Feb 16 2018 UCFR(1)