From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Jan 12 16:10:06 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id QAA03074 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 12 Jan 1997 16:10:06 -0800 (PST) Received: from labs.usn.blaze.net.au (labs.usn.blaze.net.au [203.17.53.30]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id QAA03032 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 1997 16:09:51 -0800 (PST) Received: (from davidn@localhost) by labs.usn.blaze.net.au (8.8.4/8.8.4) id LAA00442; Mon, 13 Jan 1997 11:08:23 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 11:08:22 +1100 From: davidn@unique.usn.blaze.net.au (David Nugent) To: terry@lambert.org (Terry Lambert) Cc: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: DEVFS permissions &c. References: <199701121838.LAA25821@phaeton.artisoft.com> X-Mailer: Mutt 0.56 Mime-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <199701121838.LAA25821@phaeton.artisoft.com>; from Terry Lambert on Jan 12, 1997 11:38:03 -0700 Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Terry Lambert writes: > > > What are the current ideas of a SysV init? :-) > > > > Shoot first and ask questions later? :-) > > > > Seriously, I've used sysv for many years, and grew to quickly despise > > the sysv approach. It does have some good sides, but, for example, > > Sun's tree of symlinks to init/shutdown scripts is definitely an > > overkill. > > This really depends on whether you expect to install third party > commercial software, or not, doesn't it? No, it is more a question of the implementation. I can easily imagine a simpler scheme involving a flat file of scripts to run, in the order in which they run, for each runlevel or even all runlevels with a flag field to determine which runlevel each should be run. This is easily handled by a bourne shell script and doesn't involve the bogosity of symlinks. > Third party commercial software needs an interface for inserting > tasks into the startup/shutdown mechanism such that it's possible > for the tasks to be added/removed without post-processing rc files, > since if only one vendor out of 200 vendors screws this up, your > system is screwed entirely. Sure, I understand the need. But symlinks just obfuscate the entire process. There is no *logical* difference between the scheme I've suggested and what many sysv's use. Only the implementation differs in that the directory becomes the list - a much more difficult way to manage it. A vendor who "screws this up" has no business being a vendor at all. Regards, David Nugent - Unique Computing Pty Ltd - Melbourne, Australia Voice +61-3-9791-9547 Data/BBS +61-3-9792-3507 3:632/348@fidonet davidn@freebsd.org davidn@blaze.net.au http://www.blaze.net.au/~davidn/