[gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Gentoo.

I performed a portage update today, and at the end it informed me I had
to deal with /etc/bash/bashrc.  This file's standard version has changed,
and I have apparently made changes in my own copy.

But the new file from portage bears no resemblance to my existing
version.  It is just 32 lines long compared to the existing file of 111
lines.  The existing file does things like setting up PS1 and colours,
the new one doesn't seem to.

My main problem is that I don't know which parts of the existing bashrc
are my changes (which I'd want to keep) and which parts were the standard
bashrc (which I can allow to be superseded by the new version).

I think portage is at fault here - it should retain the older standard
version of /etc/bash/bashrc so that users can resolve the differences
with a 3-way diff.

Right now, I have a problem.  Is there any convenient way I can get the
older standard file contents back again, so as to be able to do this
3-way diff?

Or any other suggestions?

Thanks!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Mike Civil]

On 14/06/2024 17:00, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Right now, I have a problem.  Is there any convenient way I can get the
> older standard file contents back again, so as to be able to do this
> 3-way diff?

Does etc-update or dispatch-conf not give you the option to selectively 
update and/or to diff the file?

Going forward it might be better to put your custom changes in a file 
under /etc/bash/bashrc.d which won't then get clobbered by portage.

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[netfab]

Le 14/06/24 à 17:53, Alan Mackenzie a tapoté :
> Right now, I have a problem.  Is there any convenient way I can get
> the older standard file contents back again, so as to be able to do
> this 3-way diff?

The old bashrc file installed by previous versions of the ebuild :

	https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/blob/master/app-shells/bash/files/bashrc

The new bashrc file :

	https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/blob/master/app-shells/bash/files/bashrc-r1

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Netfab.

On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 18:22:11 +0200, netfab wrote:
> Le 14/06/24 à 17:53, Alan Mackenzie a tapoté :
> > Right now, I have a problem.  Is there any convenient way I can get
> > the older standard file contents back again, so as to be able to do
> > this 3-way diff?

> The old bashrc file installed by previous versions of the ebuild :

> 	https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/blob/master/app-shells/bash/files/bashrc

> The new bashrc file :

> 	https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/blob/master/app-shells/bash/files/bashrc-r1

I don't have access to these files, unfortunately.  Github has blocked
them behind a script.  I certainly amn't about to let a Microsoft script
run in my browser.  That is just too high a cost to pay.

Are these files freely available, anywhere, perhaps?

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Mike.

On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 17:19:31 +0100, Mike Civil wrote:
> On 14/06/2024 17:00, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > Right now, I have a problem.  Is there any convenient way I can get the
> > older standard file contents back again, so as to be able to do this
> > 3-way diff?

> Does etc-update or dispatch-conf not give you the option to selectively 
> update and/or to diff the file?

In theory, yes.  In practice, dispatch-conf just offers a single
~130-line long hunk, which is useless for distinguishing wanted pieces of
code from old superseded code.  As I say, what's missing is the old
repository version, which would allow a diff3.

Maybe I should submit a feature request to Gentoo's bugzilla.

> Going forward it might be better to put your custom changes in a file 
> under /etc/bash/bashrc.d which won't then get clobbered by portage.

Or something like that, yes!

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[netfab]

Le 14/06/24 à 19:33, Alan Mackenzie a tapoté :
> Are these files freely available, anywhere, perhaps?
> 

And if you try to get the raw version with wget ?

> $ cd /tmp
> $ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gentoo/gentoo/master/app-shells/bash/files/bashrc

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[netfab]

Le 14/06/24 à 19:33, Alan Mackenzie a tapoté :
> Are these files freely available, anywhere, perhaps?

Else, everything is also available from gentoo.org :
	https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/app-shells/bash/files/bashrc

Click on plain to  get the raw version.

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Waldo Lemmer]

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On Fri, Jun 14, 2024, 19:39 Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:

Maybe I should submit a feature request to Gentoo's bugzilla.
>

Occasionally a package updates a file in /etc/, and I can't remember
whether the file was modified by me or not. This usually happens with
things I don't completely understand and therefore don't know what I did in
the past, such as PAM and libvirt.

Adding a comment to the top of each file I edit would help with this, but
sometimes I edit files indirectly using utilities. libvirt's package
recently updated ~30 files in /etc/ and I still don't know which of those
were stock. I hope I got the u's and the z's right.

This feature, if implemented, would help immensely.

>

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Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Vitaliy Perekhovy]

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On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 03:53:35PM +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> I think portage is at fault here - it should retain the older standard
> version of /etc/bash/bashrc so that users can resolve the differences
> with a 3-way diff.

Before replace your old bashrc file, portage place the old one
here: /etc/config-archive/etc/bash/bashrc

-- 
Regards,
Vitaliy Perekhovy

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Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Jack]

On 2024.06.14 14:25, Vitaliy Perekhovy wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 03:53:35PM +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > I think portage is at fault here - it should retain the older  
> standard
> > version of /etc/bash/bashrc so that users can resolve the  
> differences
> > with a 3-way diff.
> 
> Before replace your old bashrc file, portage place the old one
> here: /etc/config-archive/etc/bash/bashrc
I don't have any such directory.  What package does it belong to, or is  
it a config setting for portage or another package?

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Paul Colquhoun]

On Saturday, June 15, 2024 1:53:35 A.M. AEST Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> Hello, Gentoo.

 
> My main problem is that I don't know which parts of the existing bashrc
> are my changes (which I'd want to keep) and which parts were the standard
> bashrc (which I can allow to be superseded by the new version).
> 
> I think portage is at fault here - it should retain the older standard
> version of /etc/bash/bashrc so that users can resolve the differences
> with a 3-way diff.

You edited the old file, not portage.

Why didn't you keep a copy of the old file?

On the other hand, a quick "locate bashrc" says that my system has some old 
versions stored away at:

/var/db/repos/gentoo/app-shells/bash/files


-- 
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC.     http://andor.dropbear.id.au/
  Asking for technical help in newsgroups?  Read this first:
     http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Vitaliy Perekhovy]

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On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 04:54:09PM -0400, Jack wrote:
> I don't have any such directory.  What package does it belong to, or is  
> it a config setting for portage or another package?

Yes, it is a configuration of portage itself. There is an env variable
CONFIG_PROTECT that contains a list of directories that portage will
protect from automatic modification. Please check this article:
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/CONFIG_PROTECT

You can query that variable by `portageq envvar CONFIG_PROTECT'.

-- 
Regards,
Vitaliy Perekhovy

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Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 14 June 2024 18:33:57 BST Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> Are these files freely available, anywhere, perhaps?

Your backup from last week?   :)

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Wol]

On 14/06/2024 16:53, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> I think portage is at fault here - it should retain the older standard
> version of /etc/bash/bashrc so that users can resolve the differences
> with a 3-way diff.

Is it portage itself that DID the update, or it did it tell you to do 
the update with etc-update, or dispatch-conf, or any one of those 
programs. Ime portage leaves the new version as ._something so you 
should have both the old and new versions until you mess it up yourself :-)

And as I keep moaning, you can't blame portage for other software being 
stupid. Doesn't bash have a ~/.bashrc you can edit? I know - all too 
often the DE gets in the way ...

Imho dovecot gets it perfectly right (as does systemd, actually, both of 
them thought this through properly) because it has a configuration in 
the default file that tells it to read a local file. So the package 
manager updates the standard file, and the standard file reads the local 
configuration to update it with the local settings.

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Wol]

On 14/06/2024 18:39, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>> Does etc-update or dispatch-conf not give you the option to selectively
>> update and/or to diff the file?

> In theory, yes.  In practice, dispatch-conf just offers a single
> ~130-line long hunk, which is useless for distinguishing wanted pieces of
> code from old superseded code.  As I say, what's missing is the old
> repository version, which would allow a diff3.

etc-update certainly, and I would be surprised if dispatch-conf didn't, 
does offer you a diff.

The (faulty) assumption here is that the user actually knows how to make 
use of a diff!

Certainly true for me, and quite likely for a sizeable minority, I 
predate both Linux and Windows by quite a large margin, and have never 
been part of the Unix eco-system. I use linux because it's better than 
Windows, I use gentoo because I want to learn, but I'm not comfortable 
with pretty much the entire development ecosystem including things like 
diff.

I so rarely use diff, that I find it simplest to run a diff (which tells 
me *what* has changed, then I open both old and new in kate, and 
manually investigate. It may be more work than using diff properly, but 
once I factor in the cost of working out how to use diff it's not worth 
it. It's doubly not worth it because I'll have forgotten all that hard 
work next time I need it!

Cheers,
Wol

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Netfab.

On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 19:52:32 +0200, netfab wrote:
> Le 14/06/24 à 19:33, Alan Mackenzie a tapoté :
> > Are these files freely available, anywhere, perhaps?

> Else, everything is also available from gentoo.org :
> 	https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/app-shells/bash/files/bashrc

> Click on plain to  get the raw version.

Thanks, that helped.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Vitaliy.

On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 21:25:23 +0300, Vitaliy Perekhovy wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 03:53:35PM +0000, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > I think portage is at fault here - it should retain the older standard
> > version of /etc/bash/bashrc so that users can resolve the differences
> > with a 3-way diff.

> Before replace your old bashrc file, portage place the old one
> here: /etc/config-archive/etc/bash/bashrc

Thanks, I didn't know that.  It was extremely helpful.

It turns out that Gentoo has reorganised the layout of /etc/bash/bashrc,
fragmenting it into bashrc itself and three files in /etc/bash/bashrc.d.
Knowing that I was able to sort things out without further problems.

It would have been nice to have known about this change before it
happened, but I suppose it's too minor a change to clog up the eselect
news system with.

> -- 
> Regards,
> Vitaliy Perekhovy

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Paul.

On Sat, Jun 15, 2024 at 09:43:22 +1000, Paul Colquhoun wrote:
> On Saturday, June 15, 2024 1:53:35 A.M. AEST Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > Hello, Gentoo.

 
> > My main problem is that I don't know which parts of the existing bashrc
> > are my changes (which I'd want to keep) and which parts were the standard
> > bashrc (which I can allow to be superseded by the new version).

> > I think portage is at fault here - it should retain the older standard
> > version of /etc/bash/bashrc so that users can resolve the differences
> > with a 3-way diff.

> You edited the old file, not portage.

> Why didn't you keep a copy of the old file?

Because that's one of the itsy-bitsy routine things that ought to be
automatic, not something that each user should have to think out for
himself.

It turns out I actually had the old file in /etc/config-archive all
along.  It's a shame dispatch-conf and friends don't do an automatic
3-way merge.  This would make things so much simpler and less stressful.

> On the other hand, a quick "locate bashrc" says that my system has some old 
> versions stored away at:

> /var/db/repos/gentoo/app-shells/bash/files

For some reason, I don't actually have that directory.

> -- 
> Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC.     http://andor.dropbear.id.au/
>   Asking for technical help in newsgroups?  Read this first:
>      http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Jack]

On 2024.06.15 02:38, Vitaliy Perekhovy wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 04:54:09PM -0400, Jack wrote:
> > I don't have any such directory.  What package does it belong to,  
> or is
> > it a config setting for portage or another package?
> 
> Yes, it is a configuration of portage itself. There is an env variable
> CONFIG_PROTECT that contains a list of directories that portage will
> protect from automatic modification. Please check this article:
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/CONFIG_PROTECT
> 
> You can query that variable by `portageq envvar CONFIG_PROTECT'.
/etc is the first entry in my CONFIG_PROTECT, but I still have no  
config-archive under /etc.  I think the folders listed in that variable  
are treated specially by portage in terms of not silently replacing  
config files, but doesn't control save/archive.

A bit of searching found the wiki page for dispatch-conf, which  
includes:

Before running dispatch-conf for the first time, the settings in  
/etc/dispatch-conf.conf should be edited, and the archive directory  
specified in /etc/dispatch-conf.conf will need to be created  
(/etc/config-archive by default).

So it appears that directory may be specific to that tool, and not  
directly related to portage.

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Peter Humphrey]

On Saturday, 15 June 2024 23:00:07 BST Jack wrote:

> A bit of searching found the wiki page for dispatch-conf, which
> includes:
> 
> Before running dispatch-conf for the first time, the settings in
> /etc/dispatch-conf.conf should be edited, and the archive directory
> specified in /etc/dispatch-conf.conf will need to be created
> (/etc/config-archive by default).
> 
> So it appears that directory may be specific to that tool, and not
> directly related to portage.

I wondered if it was a systemd feature, but apparently not. Thanks for 
clearing that up.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Wols Lists]

On 15/06/2024 21:10, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>> Why didn't you keep a copy of the old file?

> Because that's one of the itsy-bitsy routine things that ought to be
> automatic, not something that each user should have to think out for
> himself.

Dunno which update tool it is, but istr there is a tool that does 
exactly that ...
> 
> It turns out I actually had the old file in /etc/config-archive all
> along.  It's a shame dispatch-conf and friends don't do an automatic
> 3-way merge.  This would make things so much simpler and less stressful.

Until it gets it wrong. Which is exactly why it doesn't. Which is why 
git doesn't. Which is why pretty much all tools don't. If they can 
figure it out they do, but they don't charge ahead regardless.

Cheers,
Wol