Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 17:59:58 -0700 (PDT) From: John Baldwin <jhb@pike.osd.bsdi.com> To: arch@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: n@nectar.com Subject: Re: Request for review: nsswitch Message-ID: <200009010059.RAA12388@pike.osd.bsdi.com> In-Reply-To: <200009010047.RAA43862@vashon.polstra.com> from John Polstra at "Aug 31, 2000 05:47:13 pm"
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John Polstra wrote:
> In article <20000831130504.A26641@hamlet.nectar.com>,
> Jacques A. Vidrine <n@nectar.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 02:34:02AM +0900, Daniel C. Sobral wrote:
> > > The reason is the following: when upgrading, merging changes to defaults
> > > against user modifications is not only very hard, but we have no support
> > > for it at all with our tools.
> >
> > The defaults for nsswitch.conf will not change, ever. They have been
> > chosen to emulate the traditional behavior.
>
> I have to agree with Daniel here. The whole point of nsswitch.conf is
> so you can customize it, right? Otherwise why bother with it? We are
> moving toward using immutable default versions in /etc/defaults with
> customizable overrides in /etc. That has made dealing with rc.conf
> and make.conf much, much easier. I think the ultimate goal should be
> that the admin can customize his /etc directory without the need to do
> _any_ merging. That means the defaults and the overrides have to be
> separated.
Erm, nssswitch.conf will not be a very active file like make.conf or
rc.conf.
> ls -l /etc | grep -v '^[dl]' | wc -l
81
> ls -l /etc/defaults | grep -v '^[dl]' | wc -l
5
I don't think we need 80 files in /etc/defaults. Thus far, the files
we have put in /etc/defaults are ones that are changed very often, and
thus can present problems with merging, e.g. rc.conf, make.conf, etc.
Also, they are files where you can simply maintain a small file in /etc
to override default settings. We don't have ttys, resolv.conf, syslog.conf,
newsyslog.conf, shells, remote, modems, pam.conf, host.conf, inetd.conf,
or any of several other files in /etc/defaults, and we don't need them
there. nsswitch.conf will basically take the place of host.conf when
this is done. /usr/src/etc/host.conf is on revision 1.6 after being in
the tree _seven_ years. 3 of these commits are due to $FreeBSD$. Thus,
since its import, it has had all of 2 actual commits, one to add a comment,
and one to change the order. Putting host.conf in /etc/defaults would
just be dumb. Same with nsswitch.conf.
> John
> --
> John Polstra jdp@polstra.com
> John D. Polstra & Co., Inc. Seattle, Washington USA
--
John Baldwin <jhb@bsdi.com> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
PGP Key: http://www.cslab.vt.edu/~jobaldwi/pgpkey.asc
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