Fwd: rpm packaging: package configuration

[Przemek Klosowski]

On 07/13/2011 05:14 AM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> On 07/13/2011 10:57 AM, Olivier Sallou wrote:
>> This can be managed manually, but it would be nicer to get this managed
>> with packaging tools.
> rpm-based systems' philosophy is to let users configure their systems
> after package installations/updates, not during installation.

OK, but post-installation configuration is a serious deployment issue in 
some environments; sometimes it is a legal requirement (custom login 
messages, participation in enterprise account management, this kind of 
thing). Doing manual tweaking on many machines is not fun---I can see 
two ways of dealing with this:

  1) deployment of a configuration system like puppet
  2) private configuration packages installed after standard package
     sets, that tweak the installation

1) is preferred, but requires serious prep and setup, and in any case it 
implies some additional client configuration that simply does not happen 
in the standard install. Is 2) an acceptable solution to the assembled 
wisdom? It doesn't seem that different to what selinux policy packages 
are doing in the SELinux area.

Maybe there are other ways to approach it that worked well for 
people---please comment.