Ubuntu: package installed, but files missing? [duplicate]

Question

I have been playing around with the /etc/asterisk directory, installing the related pacakge (asterisk-config), removing it, removing the directory manually (just playing around to get the configuration synced to my configuration repo). Now I just want to reinstall the official package, so I do:

root@tethys:/etc# apt-get install asterisk-config
root@tethys:/etc# tree asterisk/
asterisk/
└── manager.d

What?! Empty?!? Have I installed it?

root@tethys:/etc# dpkg --get-selections | grep asterisk
asterisk                                        install
asterisk-config                                 install
asterisk-core-sounds-en                         install
asterisk-core-sounds-en-gsm                     install
asterisk-modules                                install
asterisk-moh-opsound-gsm                        install
asterisk-voicemail                              install

Indeed! Let me check the contents of the package:

root@tethys:/etc# dpkg -L asterisk-config
...
/etc
/etc/asterisk
/etc/asterisk/res_snmp.conf
/etc/asterisk/dbsep.conf
/etc/asterisk/cel_custom.conf
/etc/asterisk/cel.conf
/etc/asterisk/meetme.conf
/etc/asterisk/jingle.conf
/etc/asterisk/queuerules.conf
...

So, what have I done that the package will get installed, but the contents are nowhere to be seen?

And, more importantly, how can I force the contents to be installed, no matter what I have done before?

Answer 1

So, I posted the question too early. Let me answer it for reference.

The config packages are special for apt. To let apt re-install them, first they must be purged. This solves the problem:

apt-get purge asterisk-config
apt-get install asterisk-config