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Date:      Tue, 02 Feb 1999 09:45:41 -0500
From:      Robert Withrow <witr@rwwa.com>
To:        Richard Wackerbarth <rkw@dataplex.net>
Cc:        Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: more modular rc/init/uninit system... 
Message-ID:  <199902021445.JAA13206@spooky.rwwa.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 01 Feb 1999 05:59:35 CST." <Pine.BSF.4.05.9902010537570.51597-100000@nomad.dataplex.net> 

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rkw@dataplex.net said:
:- Actually, more than "on startup". You should be able to move from one
:- environment to another at any time by changing the target. (eg run
:- level)   

I think it is important to avoid conflating "configuration management"
with "startup/shutdown" management.  The SYSV run-levels do that
and I think that is a great flaw.

I'd like to separate these two things.

So, for example, deciding whether to start PPP over your ISP or Ethernet
over your office LAN would be a "configuration management" issue.  Actually
starting the system, given a particular configuration, would be a
"startup/shutdown management" issue.

That is not to say that the one wouldn't draw on the features of the other.

For example, should you decide to switch from one configuration to another
without restarting the system (by sleeping your laptop at the office and
waking it up at home) you would presumably use the "startup/shutdown 
management"
features to stop/start/restart the appropriate services to effect the
switch to the new configuration.

Keeping a strict demarcation between these two entities will result in
a much simpler and thus understandable/maintainable implementation than
a mongo-ronco-Makefile-prolog-rule-based-config-rewriting does-everyting
tool.  IMO.

My proposal carefully addressed only the startup/shutdown management issues,
leaving the configuration management issues to some other 
to-be-designed-in-the-future tool.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA, witr@rwwa.COM



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