debconf (software)
Debconf | |
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Basic data
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developer | Joey Hess |
Current version | 1.5.49 |
operating system | Linux , Unix |
programming language | Pearl |
category | Package management |
License | BSD-2 clause |
wiki.debian.org/debconf |
debconf is a software tool for system-wide configuration under Unix- like operating systems. It was developed for the Linux distribution Debian and is closely related to Debian's package management dpkg .
When a package is installed, debconf asks the user for settings that determine the contents of the system-wide configuration files associated with the package. After the installation it is possible to change the configuration of the package by dpkg-reconfigure
running the program (or another program such as Synaptic ).
The design of debconf allows front-ends to be added to answer configuration questions in a modular way. There are several such front-ends, such as dialog , one for GNU readline , one for using text editors , a Python front-end API, and front-ends for KDE and GNOME .
The original implementation of debconf was written in Perl . During the development of the Debian installer , a new implementation was written in C called cdebconf . This is only used by the installer, but should completely replace the original in the long term. Both implementations use the same protocol for communication between the debconf front-end and the client code ("confmodule"); it is a simple line-based protocol similar to the well-known Internet protocols.