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debconf.conf(5) - phpMan
DEBCONF.CONF(5) File Formats Manual DEBCONF.CONF(5)
NAME
debconf.conf - debconf configuration file
DESCRIPTION
Debconf is a configuration system for Debian packages. /etc/debconf.conf and ~/.debconfrc
are configuration files debconf uses to determine which databases it should use. These
databases are used for storing two types of information; dynamic config data the user
enters into it, and static template data. Debconf offers a flexible, extensible database
backend. New drivers can be created with a minimum of effort, and sets of drivers can be
combined in various ways.
SYNOPSIS
# This is a sample config file that is
# sufficient to use debconf.
Config: configdb
Templates: templatedb
Name: configdb
Driver: File
Filename: /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
Name: templatedb
Driver: File
Mode: 644
Filename: /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat
FILE FORMAT
The format of this file is a series of stanzas, each separated by at least one wholly
blank line. Comment lines beginning with a "#" character are ignored.
The first stanza of the file is special, is used to configure debconf as a whole. Two
fields are required to be in this first stanza:
Config Specifies the name of the database from which to load config data.
Templates
Specifies the name of the database to use for the template cache.
Additional fields that can be used include:
Frontend
The frontend Debconf should use, overriding any frontend set in the debconf
database.
Priority
The priority Debconf should use, overriding any priority set in the debconf
database.
Admin-Email
The email address Debconf should send mail to if it needs to make sure that
the admin has seen an important message. Defaults to "root", but can be set
to any valid email address to send the mail there. If you prefer to never
have debconf send you mail, specify a blank address. This can be overridden
on the fly with the DEBCONF_ADMIN_EMAIL environment variable.
Debug If set, this will cause debconf to output debugging information to standard
error. The value it is set to can be something like "user", "developer",
"db", or a regular expression. Typically, rather than setting it permanently
in a config file, you will only want to temporarily turn on debugging, and
the DEBCONF_DEBUG environment variable can be set instead to accomplish
that.
NoWarnings
If set, this will make debconf not display warnings about various things.
This can be overridden on the fly with the DEBCONF_NOWARNINGS environment
variable.
Log Makes debconf log debugging information as it runs, to the syslog. The value
it is set to controls that is logged. See Debug, above for an explanation of
the values that can be set to control what is logged.
Terse If set to "true", makes some debconf frontends use a special terse display
mode that outputs as little as possible. Defaults to false. Terse mode may
be temporarily set via the DEBCONF_TERSE environment variable.
For example, the first stanza of a file might look like this:
Config: configdb
Templates: templatedb
Each remaining stanza in the file sets up a database. A database stanza begins by naming
the database:
Name: configdb
Then it indicates what database driver should be used for this database. See DRIVERS,
below, for information about what drivers are available.
Driver: File
You can indicate that the database is not essential to the proper functioning of debconf
by saying it is not required. This will make debconf muddle on if the database fails for
some reason.
Required: false
You can mark any database as readonly and debconf will not write anything to it.
Readonly: true
You can also limit what types of data can go into the database with Accept- and Reject-
lines; see ACCESS CONTROLS, below.
The remainder of each database stanza is used to provide configuration specific to that
driver. For example, the Text driver needs to know a directory to put the database in, so
you might say:
Filename: /var/cache/debconf/config.dat
DRIVERS
A number of drivers are available, and more can be written with little difficulty. Drivers
come in two general types. First there are real drivers -- drivers that actually access
and store data in some kind of database, which might be on the local filesystem, or on a
remote system. Then there are meta-drivers that combine other drivers together to form
more interesting systems. Let's start with the former.
File
This database driver allows debconf to store a whole database in a single
flat text file. This makes it easy to archive, transfer between machines,
and edit. It is one of the more compact database formats in terms of disk
space used. It is also one of the slowest.
On the downside, the entire file has to be read in each time debconf starts
up, and saving it is also slow.
The following things are configurable for this driver.
Filename
The file to use as the database. This is a required field.
Mode The permissions to create the file with if it does not exist.
Defaults to 600, since the file could contain passwords in
some circumstances.
Format The format of the file. See FORMATS below. Defaults to using a
rfc-822 like format.
Backup Whether a backup should be made of the old file before chang‐
ing it. Defaults to true.
As example stanza setting up a database using this driver:
Name: mydb
Driver: File
Filename: /var/cache/debconf/mydb.dat
DirTree
This database driver allows debconf to store data in a hierarchical direc‐
tory structure. The names of the various debconf templates and questions are
used as-is to form directories with files in them. This format for the data‐
base is the easiest to browse and fiddle with by hand. It has very good
load and save speeds. It also typically occupies the most space, since a lot
of small files and subdirectories do take up some additional room.
The following things are configurable for this driver.
Directory
The directory to put the files in. Required.
Extension
An extension to add to the names of files. Must be set to a
non-empty string; defaults to ".dat"
Format The format of the file. See FORMATS below. Defaults to using a
rfc-822 like format.
Backup Whether a backup should be made of the old file before chang‐
ing it. Defaults to true.
As example stanza setting up a database using this driver:
Name: mydb
Driver: DirTree
Directory: /var/cache/debconf/mydb
Extension: .txt
PackageDir
This database driver is a compromise between the File and DirTree databases.
It uses a directory, in which there is (approximately) one file per package
that uses debconf. This is fairly fast, while using little more room than
the File database driver.
This driver is configurable in the same ways as is the DirTree driver, plus:
Mode The permissions to create files with. Defaults to 600, since the
files could contain passwords in some circumstances.
As example stanza setting up a database using this driver:
Name: mydb
Driver: PackageDir
Directory: /var/cache/debconf/mydb
LDAP
WARNING: This database driver is currently experimental. Use with caution.
This database driver accesses a LDAP directory for debconf configuration
data. Due to the nature of the beast, LDAP directories should typically be
accessed in read-only mode. This is because multiple accesses can take
place, and it's generally better for data consistency if nobody tries to
modify the data while this is happening. Of course, write access is sup‐
ported for those cases where you do want to update the config data in the
directory.
For information about setting up a LDAP server for debconf, read
/usr/share/doc/debconf-doc/README.LDAP (from the debconf-doc package).
To use this database driver, you must have the libnet-ldap-perl package
installed. Debconf suggests that package, but does not depend on it.
Please carefully consider the security implications of using a remote deb‐
conf database. Unless you trust the source, and you trust the intervening
network, it is not a very safe thing to do.
The following things are configurable for this driver.
server The host name or IP address of an LDAP server to connect to.
port The port on which to connect to the LDAP server. If none is
given, the default port is used.
basedn The DN under which all config items will be stored. Each con‐
fig item will be assumed to live in a DN of cn=<item
name>,<Base DN>. If this structure is not followed, all bets
are off.
binddn The DN to bind to the directory as. Anonymous bind will be
used if none is specified.
bindpasswd
The password to use in an authenticated bind (used with
binddn, above). If not specified, anonymous bind will be used.
This option should not be used in the general case. Anonymous
binding should be sufficient most of the time for read-only
access. Specifying a bind DN and password should be reserved
for the occasional case where you wish to update the debconf
configuration data.
keybykey
Enable access to individual LDAP entries, instead of fetching
them all at once in the beginning. This is very useful if you
want to monitor your LDAP logs for specific debconf keys
requested. In this way, you could also write custom handling
code on the LDAP server part.
Note that when this option is enabled, the connection to the
LDAP server is kept active during the whole Debconf run. This
is a little different from the all-in-one behavior where two
brief connections are made to LDAP; in the beginning to
retrieve all the entries, and in the end to save eventual
changes.
An example stanza setting up a database using this driver, assuming the
remote database is on example.com and can be accessed anonymously:
Name: ldapdb
Driver: LDAP
Readonly: true
Server: example.com
BaseDN: cn=debconf,dc=example,dc=com
KeyByKey: 0
Another example, this time the LDAP database is on localhost, and can be
written to:
Name: ldapdb
Driver: LDAP
Server: localhost
BaseDN: cn=debconf,dc=domain,dc=com
BindPasswd: secret
KeyByKey: 1
Pipe
This special-purpose database driver reads and writes the database from
standard input/output. It may be useful for people with special needs.
The following things are configurable for this driver.
Format The format to read and write. See FORMATS below. Defaults to
using a rfc-822 like format.
Infd File descriptor number to read from. Defaults to reading from
stdin. If set to "none", the database will not read any data
on startup.
Outfd File descriptor number to write to. Defaults to writing to
stdout. If set to "none", the database will be thrown away on
shutdown.
That's all of the real drivers, now moving on to meta-drivers..
Stack
This driver stacks up a number of other databases (of any type), and allows
them to be accessed as one. When debconf asks for a value, the first data‐
base on the stack that contains the value returns it. If debconf writes
something to the database, the write normally goes to the first driver on
the stack that has the item debconf is modifying, and if none do, the new
item is added to the first writable database on the stack.
Things become more interesting if one of the databases on the stack is read‐
only. Consider a stack of the databases foo, bar, and baz, where foo and baz
are both readonly. Debconf wants to change an item, and this item is only
present in baz, which is readonly. The stack driver is smart enough to real‐
ize that won't work, and it will copy the item from baz to bar, and the
write will take place in bar. Now the item in baz is shadowed by the item in
bar, and it will not longer be visible to debconf.
This kind of thing is particularly useful if you want to point many systems
at a central, readonly database, while still allowing things to be overrid‐
den on each system. When access controls are added to the picture, stacks
allow you to do many other interesting things, like redirect all passwords
to one database while a database underneath it handles everything else.
Only one piece of configuration is needed to set up a stack:
Stack This is where you specify a list of other databases, by name,
to tell it what makes up the stack.
For example:
Name: megadb
Driver: stack
Stack: passworddb, configdb, companydb
WARNING: The stack driver is not very well tested yet. Use at your own risk.
Backup
This driver passes all requests on to another database driver. But it also
copies all write requests to a backup database driver.
You must specify the following fields to set up this driver:
Db The database to read from and write to.
Backupdb
The name of the database to send copies of writes to.
For example:
Name: backup
Driver: Backup
Db: mydb
Backupdb: mybackupdb
Debug
This driver passes all requests on to another database driver, outputting
verbose debugging output about the request and the result.
You must specify the following fields to set up this driver:
Db The database to read from and write to.
ACCESS CONTROLS
When you set up a database, you can also use some fields to specify access con‐
trols. You can specify that a database only accepts passwords, for example, or make
a database only accept things with "foo" in their name.
Readonly
As was mentioned earlier, this access control, if set to "true", makes a
database readonly. Debconf will read values from it, but will never write
anything to it.
Accept-Name
The text in this field is a perl-compatible regular expression that is
matched against the names of items as they are requested from the database.
Only if an items name matches the regular expression, will the database
allow debconf to access or modify it.
Reject-Name
Like Accept-Name, except any item name matching this regular expression will
be rejected.
Accept-Type
Another regular expression, this matches against the type of the item that
is being accessed. Only if the type matches the regex will access be
granted.
Reject-Type
Like Accept-Type, except any type matching this regular expression will be
rejected.
FORMATS
Some of the database drivers use format modules to control the actual format in
which the database is stored on disk. These formats are currently supported:
822 This is a file format loosely based upon the rfc-822 format for email mes‐
sage headers. Similar formats are used throughout Debian; in the dpkg status
file, and so on.
EXAMPLE
Here is a more complicated example of a debconf.conf file.
# This stanza is used for general debconf setup.
Config: stack
Templates: templates
Log: developer
Debug: developer
# This is my own local database.
Name: mydb
Driver: DirTree
Directory: /var/cache/debconf/config
# This is another database that I use to hold
# only X server configuration.
Name: X
Driver: File
Filename: /etc/X11/debconf.dat
Mode: 644
# It's sorta hard to work out what questions
# belong to X; it should be using a deeper
# tree structure so I could just match on ^X/
# Oh well.
Accept-Name: xserver|xfree86|xbase
# This is our company's global, read-only
# (for me!) debconf database.
Name: company
Driver: LDAP
Server: debconf.foo.com
BaseDN: cn=debconf,dc=foo,dc=com
BindDN: uid=admin,dc=foo,dc=com
BindPasswd: secret
Readonly: true
# I don't want any passwords that might be
# floating around in there.
Reject-Type: password
# If this db is not accessible for whatever
# reason, carry on anyway.
Required: false
# I use this database to hold
# passwords safe and secure.
Name: passwords
Driver: File
Filename: /etc/debconf/passwords
Mode: 600
Accept-Type: password
# Let's put them all together
# in a database stack.
Name: stack
Driver: Stack
Stack: passwords, X, mydb, company
# So, all passwords go to the password database.
# Most X configuration stuff goes to the X
# database, and anything else goes to my main
# database. Values are looked up in each of those
# in turn, and if none has a particular value, it
# is looked up in the company-wide LDAP database
# (unless it's a password).
# A database is also used to hold templates. We
# don't need to make this as fancy.
Name: templates
Driver: File
Mode: 644
Format: 822
Filename: /var/cache/debconf/templates
NOTES
If you use something like ${HOME} in this file, it will be replaced with the value
of the named environment variable.
Environment variables can also be used to override the databases on the fly, see
debconf(7)
The field names (the part of the line before the colon) is case-insensitive. The
values, though, are case sensitive.
PLANNED ENHANCEMENTS
More drivers and formats. Some ideas include: A SQL driver, with the capability to
access a remote database. A DHCP driver, that makes available some special things
like hostname, IP address, and DNS servers. A driver that pulls values out of pub‐
lic DNS records TXT fields. A format that is compatible with the output of cdeb‐
conf. An override driver, which can override the value field or flags of all
requests that pass through it.
FILES
/etc/debconf.conf
~/.debconfrc
SEE ALSO
debconf(7)
AUTHOR
Joey Hess <joeyh AT debian.org>
DEBCONF.CONF(5)
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