Dovecot update overwrites local config

[Mathew Newton]

System: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS

Using Aptitude I updated Dovecot (specifically dovecot-core:amd64) from 1:2.2.33.2-1ubuntu4.2 -> 1:2.2.33.2-1ubuntu4.3 and ended up with a non-working installation. The reason for this is that the following config files were completely overwritten (the latter two being the most critical in my case):

/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-logging.conf
/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-ssl.conf

I was able to manually restore my configs from backups but was wondering if this really should have happened, at least without requesting approval first and opportunity to deny/edit/etc?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi Mathew,

Apologies - we usually triage bugs as they come in but this one appears to have slipped through the cracks somehow.

You're right, normally config files should not get overwritten during upgrades, and in fact the upgrader is supposed to prompt you if it does, displaying the changes. I'm not as familiar with aptitude, I generally upgrade from the command line. I don't know for these particular files but it certainly has behaved that way with other files.

Would you be willing to try reproducing this behavior, but using `apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade` instead and see if it again overwrites them without a prompt? If it does, then we should probably work up a synthetic test case to reproduce it, and work on a fix. If it does not, then perhaps the real issue is an aptitude mis-behavior?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for dovecot (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]