What's the format of the debconf config.dat file?
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
debconf has a file at /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
that contains answers to configuration questions. For example,
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Template: libpam-runtime/profiles
Value: unix, systemd
Owners: libpam-runtime
Variables:
profile_names = mkhomedir, unix, systemd
profiles = activate mkhomedir, Unix authentication, Register user sessions in the systemd control group hierarchy
What are Name
and Template
and why do they always seem to be the same? Value
and Owners
seem clear enough. Most of all, what is the Variables
part for? I thought the whole stanza was describing a variable.
debian ubuntu debconf
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
debconf has a file at /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
that contains answers to configuration questions. For example,
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Template: libpam-runtime/profiles
Value: unix, systemd
Owners: libpam-runtime
Variables:
profile_names = mkhomedir, unix, systemd
profiles = activate mkhomedir, Unix authentication, Register user sessions in the systemd control group hierarchy
What are Name
and Template
and why do they always seem to be the same? Value
and Owners
seem clear enough. Most of all, what is the Variables
part for? I thought the whole stanza was describing a variable.
debian ubuntu debconf
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
debconf has a file at /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
that contains answers to configuration questions. For example,
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Template: libpam-runtime/profiles
Value: unix, systemd
Owners: libpam-runtime
Variables:
profile_names = mkhomedir, unix, systemd
profiles = activate mkhomedir, Unix authentication, Register user sessions in the systemd control group hierarchy
What are Name
and Template
and why do they always seem to be the same? Value
and Owners
seem clear enough. Most of all, what is the Variables
part for? I thought the whole stanza was describing a variable.
debian ubuntu debconf
debconf has a file at /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
that contains answers to configuration questions. For example,
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Template: libpam-runtime/profiles
Value: unix, systemd
Owners: libpam-runtime
Variables:
profile_names = mkhomedir, unix, systemd
profiles = activate mkhomedir, Unix authentication, Register user sessions in the systemd control group hierarchy
What are Name
and Template
and why do they always seem to be the same? Value
and Owners
seem clear enough. Most of all, what is the Variables
part for? I thought the whole stanza was describing a variable.
debian ubuntu debconf
debian ubuntu debconf
edited Dec 7 at 5:19
Stephen Kitt
162k24360438
162k24360438
asked Dec 6 at 23:57
Dan Ellis
1385
1385
add a comment |
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
Technically, that stanza is describing a Question, in debconf terminology.
As for Template
, from the doc text of the corresponding Perl module:
When a new template is created, a question is created with the same
name as the template. This is to ensure that the template has at least
one owner -- the question, and to make life easier for debconf users
-- so they don't have to manually register that question.
The owner field, then, is actually used to set the owner of the
question.
It's likely that most users of debconf didn't need to create additional questions based on the same template.
To understand the Variables
part, you need to look up the corresponding template. In this case, profiles
is a list of choices (see /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat
):
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Choices: ${profiles}
Choices-c: ${profile_names}
Description: PAM profiles to enable:
...
And from man 7 debconf
, this is an instance of the select
variable type:
select A choice between one of a number of values. The choices must be specified in
a field named 'Choices'. Separate the possible values with commas and
spaces, like this:
Choices: yes, no, maybe
The Choices-C
field is closely related:
DEBCONF_C_VALUES
If this environment variable is set to 'true', the frontend will display the values
in Choices-C fields (if present) of select and multiselect templates rather than
the descriptive values.
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "106"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});
function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});
}
});
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2funix.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f486481%2fwhats-the-format-of-the-debconf-config-dat-file%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
Technically, that stanza is describing a Question, in debconf terminology.
As for Template
, from the doc text of the corresponding Perl module:
When a new template is created, a question is created with the same
name as the template. This is to ensure that the template has at least
one owner -- the question, and to make life easier for debconf users
-- so they don't have to manually register that question.
The owner field, then, is actually used to set the owner of the
question.
It's likely that most users of debconf didn't need to create additional questions based on the same template.
To understand the Variables
part, you need to look up the corresponding template. In this case, profiles
is a list of choices (see /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat
):
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Choices: ${profiles}
Choices-c: ${profile_names}
Description: PAM profiles to enable:
...
And from man 7 debconf
, this is an instance of the select
variable type:
select A choice between one of a number of values. The choices must be specified in
a field named 'Choices'. Separate the possible values with commas and
spaces, like this:
Choices: yes, no, maybe
The Choices-C
field is closely related:
DEBCONF_C_VALUES
If this environment variable is set to 'true', the frontend will display the values
in Choices-C fields (if present) of select and multiselect templates rather than
the descriptive values.
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
Technically, that stanza is describing a Question, in debconf terminology.
As for Template
, from the doc text of the corresponding Perl module:
When a new template is created, a question is created with the same
name as the template. This is to ensure that the template has at least
one owner -- the question, and to make life easier for debconf users
-- so they don't have to manually register that question.
The owner field, then, is actually used to set the owner of the
question.
It's likely that most users of debconf didn't need to create additional questions based on the same template.
To understand the Variables
part, you need to look up the corresponding template. In this case, profiles
is a list of choices (see /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat
):
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Choices: ${profiles}
Choices-c: ${profile_names}
Description: PAM profiles to enable:
...
And from man 7 debconf
, this is an instance of the select
variable type:
select A choice between one of a number of values. The choices must be specified in
a field named 'Choices'. Separate the possible values with commas and
spaces, like this:
Choices: yes, no, maybe
The Choices-C
field is closely related:
DEBCONF_C_VALUES
If this environment variable is set to 'true', the frontend will display the values
in Choices-C fields (if present) of select and multiselect templates rather than
the descriptive values.
add a comment |
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
up vote
2
down vote
accepted
Technically, that stanza is describing a Question, in debconf terminology.
As for Template
, from the doc text of the corresponding Perl module:
When a new template is created, a question is created with the same
name as the template. This is to ensure that the template has at least
one owner -- the question, and to make life easier for debconf users
-- so they don't have to manually register that question.
The owner field, then, is actually used to set the owner of the
question.
It's likely that most users of debconf didn't need to create additional questions based on the same template.
To understand the Variables
part, you need to look up the corresponding template. In this case, profiles
is a list of choices (see /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat
):
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Choices: ${profiles}
Choices-c: ${profile_names}
Description: PAM profiles to enable:
...
And from man 7 debconf
, this is an instance of the select
variable type:
select A choice between one of a number of values. The choices must be specified in
a field named 'Choices'. Separate the possible values with commas and
spaces, like this:
Choices: yes, no, maybe
The Choices-C
field is closely related:
DEBCONF_C_VALUES
If this environment variable is set to 'true', the frontend will display the values
in Choices-C fields (if present) of select and multiselect templates rather than
the descriptive values.
Technically, that stanza is describing a Question, in debconf terminology.
As for Template
, from the doc text of the corresponding Perl module:
When a new template is created, a question is created with the same
name as the template. This is to ensure that the template has at least
one owner -- the question, and to make life easier for debconf users
-- so they don't have to manually register that question.
The owner field, then, is actually used to set the owner of the
question.
It's likely that most users of debconf didn't need to create additional questions based on the same template.
To understand the Variables
part, you need to look up the corresponding template. In this case, profiles
is a list of choices (see /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat
):
Name: libpam-runtime/profiles
Choices: ${profiles}
Choices-c: ${profile_names}
Description: PAM profiles to enable:
...
And from man 7 debconf
, this is an instance of the select
variable type:
select A choice between one of a number of values. The choices must be specified in
a field named 'Choices'. Separate the possible values with commas and
spaces, like this:
Choices: yes, no, maybe
The Choices-C
field is closely related:
DEBCONF_C_VALUES
If this environment variable is set to 'true', the frontend will display the values
in Choices-C fields (if present) of select and multiselect templates rather than
the descriptive values.
answered Dec 7 at 6:37
muru
35.9k584159
35.9k584159
add a comment |
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to Unix & Linux Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Some of your past answers have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from answering.
Please pay close attention to the following guidance:
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2funix.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f486481%2fwhats-the-format-of-the-debconf-config-dat-file%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown