I tried to find out to which package /etc/nsswitch.conf belongs on my Debian machine, but dpkg --search /etc/nsswitch.conf won't tell me. Does anyone know?
To which Debian package does /etc/nsswitch.conf belong?
linux;debian;apt;package management;nsswitch
This file belongs to the base-files package.You can use the following apt-file command to see to which package a file belongs:sudo apt-get install apt-fileapt-file updateapt-file search nsswitch.confCheck debian README files for explanation about some files in base-files packagecat /usr/share/doc/base-files/READMEQ. After upgrading my system recently, I noticed that some files from  base-files do not match the ones which are installed on a fresh install  of squeeze. Should I not be warned about that?A. Those files are configuration files, so they are completely under  the control of the system admin. The files installed by base-files are  just defaults. Changes in the default files are not important enough  to warn the user, as it is also policy that prompting should be  reduced to a minimum. This is also the reason they are not handled via  dpkg's conffile mechanism.In either case, if you want to upgrade those files, just look at thepostinst for base-files (i.e. /var/lib/dpkg/info/base-files.postinst)and you will see how they are created and where their master copies are:install_from_default /usr/share/base-files/nsswitch.conf /etc/nsswitch.confinstall_from_default /usr/share/base-files/dot.profile   /root/.profileinstall_from_default /usr/share/base-files/dot.bashrc    /root/.bashrcinstall_from_default /usr/share/base-files/profile       /etc/profileinstall_from_default /usr/share/base-files/motd          /etc/motdSo, if you want your system to be as similar as possible to a newlyinstalled squeeze system, you might want to sync these files manually.