From owner-freebsd-current  Wed Jul 26 12:10:25 1995
Return-Path: current-owner
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.11/8.6.6) id MAA13677
          for current-outgoing; Wed, 26 Jul 1995 12:10:25 -0700
Received: from gndrsh.aac.dev.com (gndrsh.aac.dev.com [198.145.92.241])
          by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.11/8.6.6) with ESMTP id MAA13659
          ; Wed, 26 Jul 1995 12:10:22 -0700
Received: (from rgrimes@localhost) by gndrsh.aac.dev.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id MAA26721; Wed, 26 Jul 1995 12:10:13 -0700
From: "Rodney W. Grimes" <rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com>
Message-Id: <199507261910.MAA26721@gndrsh.aac.dev.com>
Subject: Re: Knobs in /etc/sysconfig
To: paul@freebsd.org
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 1995 12:10:13 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: wollman@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu, jkh@time.cdrom.com,
        current@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199507261907.UAA29590@server.netcraft.co.uk> from "Paul Richards" at Jul 26, 95 08:07:12 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24]
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 1609      
Sender: current-owner@freebsd.org
Precedence: bulk

> 
> In reply to Rodney W. Grimes who said
> > 
> > The package mechanism went to great pains to allow other locations than
> > /usr/local for this stuff, fixing that location in an /etc file would
> > be counter productive to this effort.
> > 
> > I can install all (or almost all) of the packages in /opt if I so choose
> > to.
> 
> Ok, the use /opt/etc :-)
> 
> Seriously, what I'd suggest is that a knob be added to /etc/sysconfig
> such as
> 
> packages_startup= /usr/local/etc
> 
> and then the package installation code honour that flag and use it to
> place their startup files. We just need one hook in /etc then that calls
> something in packages_startup. If Satoshi thinks up a simple registration
> system, such as just adding a line to packages_startup/startme, then
> this will all work with little effort and we avoid lots of little files
> getting added to /etc for each installed package.

Now that I can live with, infact that is the best solution I have seen
to this problem yet!

> Installing a package is then a process of, checking /etc/sysconfig to
> see where package startup files go, installing them there and doing
> any other mess with startup files there instead of /etc.

Maybe even make that slightly more global:
/etc/sysconfig: package_root= /usr/local

Then pkg_install has a better place to pick up the default for all
of its work.  And saves those who use something other than /usr/local
a few command line arguments.

-- 
Rod Grimes                                      rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com
Accurate Automation Company                 Reliable computers for FreeBSD