nixos-rebuild overwrites existing files in /etc

[bennofs]

As it is implemented currently, nixos-rebuild will overwrite existing files in /etc. Wouldn't it be better if instead of overwriting them, it printed a warning?

[jpierre03]

@bennofs

1. IMHO, a failure should trigger an error.
2. add a file in /etc/xxx is supported in nixos with environment.etc attribute

Example:
environment.etc."pulse/daemon.conf".text = "flat-volumes = no"

an existing file can be fetched with builtins.readFile

[deepfire]

@bennofs, quite notably I just have finished fighting a counterexample to your statement -- #22062!

In my case, a stale regular file /etc/cups/cupsd.conf was silently preventing a proper symlink from being installed during rebuild-switch.

[vcunat]

Triggering an error isn't so easy, because an equivalent of switch can happen on boot-time, and there it's a much larger problem if you just fail. It shouldn't be silent in any case.

[mmahut]

Are there any updates to this issue, please?

[stale]

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