From owner-freebsd-bugs Wed Mar 29 08:57:10 1995 Return-Path: bugs-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id IAA21871 for bugs-outgoing; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 08:57:10 -0800 Received: from halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu (halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.159]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with SMTP id IAA21865; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 08:57:06 -0800 Received: by halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu; id AA14584; Wed, 29 Mar 1995 11:56:56 -0500 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 1995 11:56:56 -0500 From: Garrett Wollman Message-Id: <9503291656.AA14584@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: freebsd-bugs@freefall.cdrom.com Subject: Re: Changed information for PR misc/278 In-Reply-To: <12916.796469126@freefall.cdrom.com> References: <199503290530.PAA18058@godzilla.zeta.org.au> <12916.796469126@freefall.cdrom.com> Sender: bugs-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk < said: > Sigh.. I think it must be said: Most of /etc is a mess, it always has > been a mess and all I've ever seen other operating systems do with it > is make it a more *convoluted* mess (SVR4 - gag me!). What's the > cool, killer paradigm shift we're missing here? :-) Well, I like what Paul has done with the RC files. As for configuration, I have had a dream occasionally that we could have a completely integrated, text-file-based, configuration database system with a different sort of naming concept. The idea was as follows: 1) Configuration specifications are hierarchical, named along the same lines as sysctl(8) MIB variables: net.inetd.conf, disk.quotas.enabled, config.lkm.autoload, passwd.userclass.grimblepritz.expiretime, etc. 2) Configuration information is stored in files with multiple sections, or in directories, or both. So, disk.quotas.enabled might be stored in a file called ${CONFIG_ROOT}/config, or /disk, or /disk/config, or /disk/quotas, or /disk/quotas/config. 3) Database schema information is integrated with the configuration information, so that for every section (like disk.quotas), there is also a schema.disk.quotas section, with entries like `entries' and `entry.description' and `entry.type'. 4) A search path for configuration information, so that site-wide defaults with local overrides can be established easily. (Default /etc/config:/usr/share/config.) 5) A central libconfig to make this all work, and user applications to edit it in a reasonable way. No, I don't plan on implementing it. But it would be nice. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... wollman@lcs.mit.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance. Opinions not those of| It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people MIT, LCS, ANA, or NSA| who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant