What is dpkg-reconfigure and how is it different from dpkg --configure?

I was recently given an answer to another question Help: “aptd” is maxing out my CPU? which included running the commands

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh -a 

and

sudo dpkg --configure -a

That all seems reasonable but I was curious about a few things.

What is dpkg-reconfigure and what do the -phigh -a flags mean?

How is it different from dpkg --configure?

1 Answer

From man dpkg

 --configure package...|-a|--pending Configure a package which has been unpacked but not yet config‐ ured. If -a or --pending is given instead of package, all unpacked but unconfigured packages are configured. Configuring consists of the following steps: 1. Unpack the conffiles, and at the same time back up the old conffiles, so that they can be restored if something goes wrong. 2. Run postinst script, if provided by the package.

From man dpkg-reconfigure

 dpkg-reconfigure - reconfigure an already installed package -pvalue, --priority=value Specify the minimum priority of question that will be displayed. dpkg-reconfigure normally shows low priority questions no matter what your default priority is. See debconf(7) for a list. -a, --all Reconfigure all installed packages that use debconf. Warning: this may take a long time.

Here dpkg --configure -a will configure all unpacked but unconfigured packages. whereas dpkg-reconfigure -phigh -a will reconfigure all installed packages that use debconf with high priority.

2

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