About external or technical configuration files

[Julien ÉLIE]

Hi all,

Do you think something should be done for the following configuration 
files in <pathetc>, that are not automatically updated with a new INN 
version?
- control.ctl
- innwatch.ctl
- moderators
- nocem.ctl

Currently, a news admin needs taking care manually of possible changes.

I doubt people really modify innwatch.ctl...  It may be a file to move 
into <pathlib> so that bug fixes are automatically taken into account 
during an update.
We could have the following behaviour:  use <pathetc>/innwatch.ctl.local 
if present.  Otherwise, use <pathlib>/innwatch.ctl.
Any opinion about that?


Changes to control.ctl and nocem.ctl are not always straight-forward, as 
a manual intervention in PGP keys could be needed.  So I would be 
inclined not to change anything, unless someone has an interesting idea.

Besides, changes to these "external" files can happen at any time, and 
are not linked to an INN release.  Same thing for the moderators file.

Maybe a simple tool that the admin could manually start, or put in cron, 
that just download the reference file (from ftp.isc.org or the GitHub 
INN repository for instance) and output the diff between the local 
installed file could be useful and be an improvement?

Incidentally, this tool may also download/compare the installed version 
of other common packages like Cleanfeed, PyClean or like.

-- 
Julien ÉLIE

« Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is
   someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. »
   (Oprah Winfrey)