From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Apr 4 10:37:34 1995 Return-Path: hackers-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id KAA16345 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 10:37:34 -0700 Received: from kitten.mcs.com (Kitten.mcs.com [192.160.127.90]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id KAA16339 for ; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 10:37:32 -0700 Received: from mailbox.mcs.com (Mailbox.mcs.com [192.160.127.87]) by kitten.mcs.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id MAA01697; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 12:37:01 -0500 Received: by mailbox.mcs.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.28.1 #28.5) id ; Tue, 4 Apr 95 12:36 CDT Received: by mercury.mcs.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.28.1 #28.5) id ; Tue, 4 Apr 95 12:36 CDT Message-Id: From: fredriks@mcs.com (Lars Fredriksen) Subject: Re: Configuration database (was Re: Changed information for PR misc/278) To: dfr@nlsys.demon.co.uk (Doug Rabson) Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 12:36:42 -0500 (CDT) Cc: bakul@netcom.com, wollman@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu, hackers@freefall.cdrom.com In-Reply-To: from "Doug Rabson" at Mar 31, 95 09:32:28 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1283 Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Doug Rabson writes: > > > Smells a lot like AIX ;-) > > Seriously though, I quite liked AIX sys admin after I got used to that > funny SMIT thing. It had basically exactly this aproach of an OO > database from which old-style configuration files were generated. > Please don't implement this the same way AIX did. They use a binary database with NO documented interface to support this, and if you ever get this DB out of whack, you are in serious trouble... Their sysadmin tool is nice for a novice sysadm, but again if your passwd file gets corrupted, you will have a tough time figuring out that this is the reason the tool will not do what you asked. The AIX tool is only a harness that calls all the underlying config tools, but it doesn't support all options to the underlying tools so you end up having to use them afterall. Anyway, one thing that AIX learnt is that support of diskless workstations gets 100% more complex once you introduce such a database.. I am not saying that we shouldn't have a configuration database, only that it has to be done carefully and well! Lars -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Lars Fredriksen fredriks@mcs.com (home) lars@fredriks.pr.mcs.net (home-home) fredriks@asiago.cs.wisc.edu