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Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 14:16:00 -0800
From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@acm.org>
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Subject: Wish List
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Saw some comments on SlashDot recently about
Mac OS X XServe's configuration capabilities:

  "... set up an LDAP server [, add it to DHCP] and
  add your configuration file to the LDAP server.
  Turn on the other servers for the first time, and
  each one will find the DHCP server, find the LDAP
  server, find the configuration file, and configure itself
  automatically."

Something like this would be nice for FreeBSD.

I'm not convinced about LDAP (although
replacing/augmenting rc.conf with an LDAP service
would be an interesting experiment, especially since
it could open some doors for GUI-based configuration
tools.)

But the ability for a FreeBSD machine, out of
the box, to locate and pull down an rc.conf
from somewhere on the network and then initialize
itself from that could be a nice feature.
(Maybe using a DNS SRV record or DHCP setting
to locate the server, caching the downloaded
rc.conf file somewhere under /var and reading it
after defaults/rc.conf but before a local rc.conf,
etc.)

Just in case someone has spare cycles and is
looking for an interesting project ....

Tim Kientzle