From owner-freebsd-arch Thu Feb 13 3:30: 4 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A2EA137B401 for ; Thu, 13 Feb 2003 03:30:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from melusine.cuivre.fr.eu.org (melusine.cuivre.fr.eu.org [62.212.105.185]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CAA8343F3F for ; Thu, 13 Feb 2003 03:30:01 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from thomas@freebsd.org) Received: by melusine.cuivre.fr.eu.org (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 889352C3D1; Thu, 13 Feb 2003 12:30:00 +0100 (CET) Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 12:30:00 +0100 From: Thomas Quinot To: Garrett Wollman Cc: arch@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: syslog.conf syntax change (multiple program/host specifications) Message-ID: <20030213113000.GD55974@melusine.cuivre.fr.eu.org> Reply-To: Thomas Quinot References: <20030210114930.GB90800@melusine.cuivre.fr.eu.org> <200302112310.h1BNAUBS019097@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> <20030212182852.GA94317@melusine.cuivre.fr.eu.org> <200302122018.h1CKIxjT026982@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <200302122018.h1CKIxjT026982@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i X-message-flag: WARNING! Using Outlook can damage your computer. Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Le 2003-02-12, Garrett Wollman écrivait : > The benefit of such changes is that, when new features are necessary > (e.g., MAC labels for servers started by inetd), it is not necessary > to create yet another kluge to shoehorn the new feature into the old, > inflexible syntax. Indeed, there is a balance to be found between integration of new features and compatibility with legacy syntax. The current state of syslog.conf IMO demonstrates that sometimes this balance can be found by evolution of the existing format, and not necessarily by a complete change of syntax. > AIX actually had sort-of-the-right-idea, in that most of the > AIX-specific configuration files are lexically identical, vary very > little in syntax, and are easily extensible. Unfortunately, there is I am more than willing to buy this argument for vendor-specific configuration files, but my point concerns files that have had similar layouts on many variants of *nix for years. > not putting forward XML because I like it; I am however noting that > none of the comparably-capable alternatives have anything like the > broad support that XML does. Sure, and as several suggested XML might be an interesting option as an intermediate representation of configuration information in the context of automated generation of config files. Thomas. -- Thomas.Quinot@Cuivre.FR.EU.ORG To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message