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From: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb>
Message-Id: <199704131218.FAA01278@freefall.freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: on the subject of changes to -RELEASEs...
To: fullermd@narcissus.ml.org (The Devil Himself)
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 05:18:59 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: giles@nemeton.com.au, jkh@time.cdrom.com, hackers@FreeBSD.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.95.970411201730.10470A-100000@narcissus.ml.org> from "The Devil Himself" at Apr 11, 97 08:19:09 pm
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The Devil Himself wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 12 Apr 1997, Giles Lean wrote:
> 
> > 
> > On Fri, 11 Apr 1997 09:50:43 -0700  "Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote:
> > 
> > > > 	how about creating HERE documents *inside* sysconfig which create
> > > > 	/etc/resolv.conf, /etc/hosts, /etc/namedb.boot, ......
> > > 
> > > So they'd be regenerated each time you booted up?
> > > 
> > > Hmmmm.  That's not such a terrible idea, actually, ...
> > 
> > Ouch!  Yikes!  NOOOOOOOOOOO!
> > 
> > That way lies the errors and madness of AIX's ODM database-thingy and
> > general confusion for all.
> > 
> > Some configuration files just have to be grandfathered, most
> > especially those that are often controlled or supplied by a network
> > administrator.
> > 
> > Giles
> > 
> 
> I have to agree; I just became/got stuffed into being admin for an AIX
> machine, and I don't even want to think about it all.  I look in /etc, and
> just about everything's symlinked all over the disk!!  What happens in one
> of those other partitions gets corrupted, and that's where the file you
> need to fix it actually is?? Not to mention, just trying to ls -fl, you
> can barely read it all.

	two different ideas are getting confused here.

	1. replace files in /etc/with symlinks to /var/etc or /etc/local.

	2. edit /etc/sysconfig to contain shell HERE documents.
	   if a shell variable is set (CONFIGETC ?) then and only then
	   are the HERE documents used to replace the contents of the
	   files in /etc.   the location _does_not_chnage_.

	   to clone a box, all you would need to do is copy /etc/sysconfig
	   to another computer and set CONFIGETC in /etc/sysconfig.

	   if CONFIGETC is not set (default configuration)  there are
	   _no_changes_ to the present method of operation.

jmb