The files in this directory are read by udev(7) and used when events are performed by the kernel. The udev daemon watches this directory with inotify so that changes to these files are automatically picked up, for this reason they must be files and not symlinks to another location as in the case in Debian. These are not conffiles. If you want to override the behaviour, you can do one of two things: 1) Write your own rules in /etc/udev/rules.d that assign the name, symlinks, permissions, etc. that you want. Pick a number higher than the rules you want to override, and yours will be used. 2) Copy the file to /etc/udev/rules.d and edit it there; you should generally only do this if you want to prevent a program from being run. Files should be named xx-descriptive-name.rules, the xx should be chosen first according to the following sequence points: < 60 rules shipped in packages; these can be overriden by later or default rules unless := is used in assignment. these cannot access persistent information such as that from blkid < 70 rules that run helpers such as blkid to populate the udev db < 90 rules that run other programs (often using information in the udev db) >=90 rules that should run last Common locations for package rules: 40-xx general rules, setting names and permissions 65-xx rules to populate the udev db 85-xx rules to run programs