Re: debian patch for localconfig.pl

I would really really like this, the whole concept of having a single file from the maintainer which is so big and then sprinkle a handful of changes is pretty bad.
In fact, I'd ideally like to see a directory of config files config.d, where the files are read in alpha/numerical order. We can still have a single web config file 00-web-config.pl. This makes it clear where the config changes are made, and also helps to use other systems to manage and push out config files/changes. 

This should make upgrades really easy to manage as well.

Don't currently have time to work on it either, but if we are dreaming of a better system, then might as well make it as flexible as possible. 

On 22 November 2025 7:39:24 am AEDT, [email protected] wrote:
>I *like* this idea along with creating timestamped backups of older
>versions of site-config.pl even though I never have used the web UI to
>write configs (for all the reasons that have been sited, including
>that it clobbers ones otherwise pristine or carefully edited config.pl)
>
>Do we really need both site-config.pl and localconfig.pl?
>Is one for web-editing and one for manual editing?
>I don't have a strong opinion but just wanted to think through this.
>
>
>G.W. Haywood wrote at about 13:34:58 +0000 on Friday, November 21, 2025:
> > Hi there,
> > 
> > On Thu, 20 Nov 2025, Paul Fox wrote:
> > 
> > > ...
> > > it seems that backuppc issue #486 is moot, and can be closed ...
> > 
> > It's closed.
> > 
> > There might be an easy way to do something like what could have been
> > intended by the Debian patch.  My idea is to have the Web UI editor
> > write to a new file (called 'site-config.pl' for example, so there's
> > no confusion with any 'localconfig.pl' that's still lying around).
> > 
> > The Web UI would only write to 'site-config.pl' those configuration
> > elements which are changed from the defaults installed in 'config.pl'.
> > (The main pain in coding would be that part, but it's fairly easily
> > doable.)  The Web UI would no longer change the existing 'config.pl'.
> > Ever.
> > 
> > The config in 'site-config.pl' would take precedence over the existing
> > 'config.pl'.  So there'd be no need to make any changes at all to the
> > configuration file which was provided when BackupPC was installed.
> > 
> > It wouldn't be too difficult also to look for any 'localconfig.pl' and
> > to do something with it if something in 'site-config.pl' permitted it.
> > 
> > So everybody would be happy.  I think.
> > 
> > It seems like not a big job, but I don't have time to actually do any
> > of this at the moment.  I throw this out for discussion in case there
> > are interested parties who can see pitfalls or suggest improvements to
> > the ideas.  Please keep the discussion here on the Mailing List until
> > there's some sort of a consensus on best the way forward.  After that,
> > if anyone would like to provide a PR I'd be very grateful.
> > 
> > When the Web UI writes a new configuration, at present it will rename
> > the old configuration file with the extension '.old' before writing a
> > new file.  I'd much prefer to write 'site-config.pl.old.$timestamp' or
> > something like that [*] (emacs does something similar here, for almost
> > everything that I edit with a text editor).
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > 73,
> > Ged.
> > 
> > [*] See Mr. Mikesell's post:
> > https://sourceforge.net/p/backuppc/mailman/message/59260402/
> > 
> > 
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>
>
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