From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 7 09:45:15 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 68CDE106570C for ; Thu, 7 Aug 2008 09:45:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ap@bnc.net) Received: from mailomat.net (mailomat.net [81.20.89.254]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E2E0B8FC1C for ; Thu, 7 Aug 2008 09:45:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ap@bnc.net) X-Mailomat-SpamCatcher-Score: 2 [X] X-Mailomat-Cloudmark-Score: 0.000000 [] Received: from [194.39.192.125] (account bnc-mail@mailrelay.mailomat.net HELO bnc.net) by mailomat.net (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.2.0) with ESMTPSA id 47463208; Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:45:12 +0200 X-SpamCatcher-Score: 2 [X] Received: from [194.39.192.126] (account ap HELO wasabi.wlan.bnc.net) by bnc.net (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.2.5) with ESMTPSA id 3286459; Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:45:11 +0200 Message-Id: <12893AA5-1667-4798-9030-89DC76621292@bnc.net> From: Achim Patzner To: "Michael B Allen" In-Reply-To: <78c6bd860808062331h674b951ei5f7ca95a930f1af4@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary=Apple-Mail-40--726656953; micalg=sha1; protocol="application/pkcs7-signature" Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v928.1) Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 10:45:11 +0200 References: <78c6bd860808061934l133d8ca6nabbde8cd55cb1d27@mail.gmail.com> <20080807010638.267d7790@bhuda.mired.org> <78c6bd860808062331h674b951ei5f7ca95a930f1af4@mail.gmail.com> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.928.1) X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Idea for FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:45:15 -0000 --Apple-Mail-40--726656953 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Am 07.08.2008 um 08:31 schrieb Michael B Allen: > mean the whole Unix runlevel rc.d apparatus in general is decrepit. Hi, Jordan! 8-) > There should be a library to install, start, stop, restart, uninstall, > disable, enable, change order of services and also change the > runlevel. And then there should be a very small utility that calls the > library to invoke the desired operations from the commandline and from > init. As I'm having my daily struggles with launchd on Mac OS Servers (subsystems like lpd being turned of by mechanisms unknown to me, orphaned processes being unceremoniously eaten by launchd without any good reasons) the dream of having one tool instead of init, cron, inetd and the rest of that gang has turned into more work. As I'm also have an allergy against AIX since I came into contact with SMIT for the first time: Be careful what you're asking for, you might really get it. > If the library and corresponding utility are implemented > correctly, the format of the file containing service state should be > moot since no one will ever look at it Besides in emergencies. That's also the time where the tools you would urgently need to repair something aren't working because the system isn't completely up and running. Believe me: Editing XML using ed isn't that exciting. > (which is to say dbm or some > other binary-blob format should be used since it makes programming the > said library much cleaner). Who cares for the programmer? 8-) > But I just made that up. Of course such things are never as simple as > they sound the first time around. It's worse. Things that are looking great on paper often turn out to be a nightmare when you have to deal with it. And things like "I still intend on writing a plist format (the non-XML one) parser to incorporate into the code base [...]" on http://wiki.freebsd.org/launchd are scaring me even more (the only thing that makes .plists in binary format bearable is the fact that they can be transformed into XML and dealt with reasonable tools). Achim --Apple-Mail-40--726656953--