restart of systemd unit transmission-daemon causes /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json to be overwritten

[Karl-Philipp Richter]

Restart of systemd unit transmission-daemon causes /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json to be overwritten. That doesn't make sense and the warning in the sibling file README.md is an unnecessary complication because it can easily be a comment in settings.json itself.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.10
Package: transmission-daemon 2.92-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.8.0-27.29-generic 4.8.1
Uname: Linux 4.8.0-27-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: openafs zfs zunicode zcommon znvpair zavl
ApportVersion: 2.20.3-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Nov 23 06:56:40 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-04-20 (582 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 14.10 "Utopic Unicorn" - Release amd64 (20141022.2)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=screen.xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: transmission
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to yakkety on 2016-10-19 (34 days ago)
modified.conffile..etc.transmission-daemon.settings.json: [inaccessible: [Errno 13] Keine Berechtigung: '/etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json']

[Karl-Philipp Richter (krichter722)]

This seems to be fixed in 2.92-1ubuntu1.

[Karl-Philipp Richter (krichter722)]

> This seems to be fixed in 2.92-1ubuntu1.
No, it's not, settings are still overwritten randomly after restarts of the service which makes absolutely no sense and is destructive.

There's mentioning of that at https://thornelabs.net/2013/08/18/transmission-settings-json-reverting-to-defaults.html as well including workaround suggestions.

[Karl-Philipp Richter (krichter722)]

The mechanism behind is apparently that the password in `settings.json` is overwritten with the hash of the password<ref>https://superuser.com/questions/113649/how-do-you-set-a-password-for-transmission-daemon-the-bittorrent-client-server</ref> which is a good idea, but requires a good implementation and documentation. Both the configuration file and the `settings.json.tmpl` are undocumented. The purpose of `settings.json.tmpl` is unclear and change to it don't seem to have an effect.