An app's deployed config is written once, on first install, and never
touched again — dockerConfigSetupToContainer copies only when the file is
absent, precisely so an update can never overwrite values someone has
edited. Right default, unchosen consequence: an app that gains a CFG_
option in a new release has it on every fresh install and on no existing
one.
The failure is silent, which is the worst part. Nothing errors. The key
reads as empty and whatever depends on it quietly does something else.
Two halves, because there were two gaps. Per-app, when a config is set up,
options present in the template and missing from the deployed file are
appended with their comment blocks — the comment is the only explanation
of a new option that exists, and a bare key at the end of a documented file
is not actionable. And a sweep across every installed app after an update,
because an update redeploys LibrePortal itself and nothing else, so without
it a new option would reach an app only when someone next reinstalled it —
which, for an app that is working, may be never.
Existing values are never touched, and keys the deployed file has but the
template no longer does are left alone: a removed option is usually a
rename, and deleting someone's value is not recoverable. Deliberately not a
regenerate-from-template, which would place new keys in their proper
section and refresh the docs, but would put a whole-file rewrite of every
app config in the path of every app action — appending cannot lose a line.
Backfilled RANDOMIZED* defaults are generated in both paths. A placeholder
left in place would otherwise be a credential identical on every install
that took the upgrade.
The sweep is driven from the template directory, not the container one:
under rootless the container tree is drwxr-x--x and owned by the docker
user, so the manager can traverse it but not list it, and a glob there
expands to nothing — the sweep would report success having examined no apps.
Run against this install it found real drift beyond the test fixtures:
mattermost was missing CFG_MATTERMOST_ADMIN_PASSWORD, whose own comment
notes that without it the password-reset tool has nothing to write to, and
speedtest was missing its password key entirely.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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