Debian : how to handle sharing one file between two .deb packages?

2

I have a custom Linux system using Debian Wheezy ARM HF. The Ethernet on our board is buggy, and to get it to work I had to patch in two sets of 'ifconfig eth0 down' and 'ifconfig eth0 up' commands into /etc/init.d/networking.

Our standard procedure is to encapsulate system specific changes into custom .deb. files. So I created a custom .deb file containing, amongst other things, the modified /etc/init.d/networking file.

The problem is that /etc/init.d/networking is already owned by ifupdown_0.7.8_armhf.deb, so installing my custom deb file requires me to force an overwrite. Additionally once this is done doing an "apt-get upgrade" will fail if the ifupdown package ever needs to be upgraded.

Can anyone recommend a better way of working in my patch, and allowing future upgrades to work without overwriting the custom change?

fred basset

Posted 2013-11-14T16:47:02.197

Reputation: 233

Script an edit? Have the package install the file somewhere else, then use a post-install script replace the main file? – Zoredache – 2013-11-14T17:54:35.027

1

See http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-replaces .

– Sami Laine – 2013-11-15T07:50:30.933

No answers