wpkg --force-file-info ...

Submitted by Alexis Wilke on Wed, 02/13/2013 - 22:34
All Force Options
--force-all --no-force-all
--refuse-all
--force-architecture --no-force-architecture
--refuse-architecture
--force-breaks --no-force-breaks
--refuse-breaks
--force-configure-any --no-force-configure-any
--refuse-configure-any
--force-conflicts --no-force-conflicts
--refuse-conflicts
--force-depends --no-force-depends
--refuse-depends
--force-depends-version --no-force-depends-version
--refuse-depends-version
--force-distribution --no-force-distribution
--refuse-distribution
--force-downgrade --no-force-downgrade
--refuse-downgrade
--force-file-info --no-force-file-info
--refuse-file-info
--force-hold --no-force-hold
--refuse-force-hold
--force-overwrite --no-force-overwrite
--refuse-overwrite
--force-overwrite-dir --no-force-overwrite-dir
--refuse-overwrite-dir
--force-remove-essential --no-force-remove-essential
--refuse-remove-essential
--force-rollback --no-force-rollback
--refuse-rollback
--force-upgrade-any-version --no-force-upgrade-any-version
--refuse-upgrade-any-version
--force-vendor --no-force-vendor
--refuse-vendor

 

When testing wpkg or using it in your own personal environment (i.e. within your home directory tree) then it can be annoying to get errors because of file ownership. The --force-file-info option replaces these errors with warnings so you can still install a package that was created for a different user.

In a system wide installation, you expect most files to be owned by a user such as root or Administrator. When creating a system that is to be installed locally, the convention changes to: install it with me as the owner. This is not possible by default (unless you created the packages and the owner of those packages is you.) At some point we may add a field in the control files to allow for ignoring the owner/group. Note that when installing a complete system (i.e. a kernel) permissions and ownership is very important. In that case you should never use this option.

You may also want to have a look at the Files-Owner and Files-Group fields.

IMPORTANT NOTE

The --no-force-all, --refuse-all, --no-force-file-info, --refuse-file-info all cancel this feature whatever the position of the different options on the command line.