Should I replace the customized configuration file during release upgrade?

Question

I'm upgrading ubuntu from 13.10 to 14.04, during the upgrade it is asking the following question:

Replace the customized configuration file '/etc/sysctl.conf'?

You will lose any changes made to this configuration file if you choose to replace it with the newer version.

Difference between the files:

--- /etc/sysctl.conf  2014-04-21 21:38:34.970070205 +0530

+++ /etc/sysctl.conf.dpkg-new 2013-04-01 07:55:31.000000000 +0530
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #
 # /etc/sysctl.conf - Configuration file for setting system variables
-# See /etc/sysctl.d/ for additional system variables
+# See /etc/sysctl.d/ for additional system variables.
 # See sysctl.conf (5) for information.
 #

@@ -58,7 +58,3 @@
 # Log Martian Packets
 #net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians = 1
 #
-# disable ipv6
-net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
-net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
-net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

I don't understand what this means, I tried googling for an answer but every post has a different file name for the same question and the answers are varying. Should I keep the file or replace it?

Answer 1

During release (or package) upgrades, the package manager usually gives you a few options:

1. Keep your version.
2. Keep the package maintainer's version.
3. Show the difference.
4. Do an (experimental) three-way merge.
5. Open a shell.

With (1) and (2), no file is discarded. With (1), the package maintainer's version is saved with the extension dpkg-dist, and with (2), your version is saved with the extension dpkg-old. You're using (3). I have never used the other two, hopefully someone who has will come along and post an answer.

I personally always choose (1), and then manually merge in the changes (if they're worthwile) after upgrade - though I assume (5) can be used to do this.

Note that this prompt comes up only if the file was modified outside the package management system (that is, by a user, like you). So the changes were presumably made by you for a reason, and usually you'd still want those changes around.

Answer 2

Over the past few days I've been upgrading a system from 12.10 -> 13.04 -> 13.10 -> 14.04.1LTS, one upgrade per day, and it was only the last stage it complained about sysctl.conf. I think what is going on is that between 13.10 to 14.04 someone added a full stop at the end of one of the comments! That is enough to get it to start complaining.

As muru's answer said, I chose to keep what was already in there (in my case it is net.ipv4.conf.eth0.arp_notify = 1, which I assume Rackspace put there, as the comment above mentions xen).

Answer 3

It's a diff output comparing the before and after files.

Lines added in the new file are marked as +, lines removed with -. The other lines starting with a ' ' are just for context.

Specifically it means:

-# See /etc/sysctl.d/ for additional system variables
+# See /etc/sysctl.d/ for additional system variables.

The old version didn't have a full stop at the end of the comment, the new one does. Trivial.

-# disable ipv6
-net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
-net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
-net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

The old version had lines about disabling ipv6 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6, How to disable IPv6 in Ubuntu 14.04?) the new one does not have these lines.

You should keep the file unless you want to enable IPv6.