From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Oct 24 02:57:37 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id CAA08356 for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 02:57:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pillar.elsevier.co.uk (root@pillar.elsevier.co.uk [193.131.222.35]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id CAA08321 for ; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 02:57:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from snowdon.elsevier.co.uk (snowdon.elsevier.co.uk [193.131.197.164]) by pillar.elsevier.co.uk (8.8.2/8.8.0) with ESMTP id KAA21601 for ; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 10:54:32 +0100 (BST) Received: from cadair.elsevier.co.uk by snowdon.elsevier.co.uk with SMTP (PP); Thu, 24 Oct 1996 10:57:00 +0100 Received: from tees.elsevier.co.uk (tees.elsevier.co.uk [193.131.197.60]) by cadair.elsevier.co.uk (8.8.2/8.8.0) with ESMTP id KAA24555; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 10:56:54 +0100 (BST) Received: (from dpr@localhost) by tees.elsevier.co.uk (8.8.2/8.8.0) id KAA18075; Thu, 24 Oct 1996 10:55:51 +0100 (BST) To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD hackers), danny@panda.hilink.com.au (Daniel O'Callaghan) Subject: Re: root only: (was Re: comments on this change please.) References: <199610240817.KAA02470@uriah.heep.sax.de> From: Paul Richards Date: 24 Oct 1996 10:55:50 +0100 In-Reply-To: J Wunsch's message of Thu, 24 Oct 1996 10:17:23 +0200 (MET DST) Message-ID: <57g234vg7t.fsf@tees.elsevier.co.uk> Lines: 35 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.30 Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk J Wunsch writes: I'm very much in the ro / camp. When we originally discussed sysconfig the idea was to have a single stop configuration file that was designed in such a way that it would be easy to build admin tools on top of while still using a flat file for people to fix with vi. Now, that goal perhaps needs re-visiting but the basic premise, that all the /etc stuff is read-only still stands I think. I put all my dynamic files in /var, things like /etc/rc should never change, there's ino reaons why the password databases can't be moved to /var since they are already modified by applications rather than by hand. It's only conservatism that's impeding progress here. As a transition measure there's this wonderful concept of symlinks that seems to be perfectly acceptable everywhere else and in any case a simple # This file has been moved to /var/foo would serve just as well in the interim to tell people they're editing the wrong file. I think in general the goal should remain and incremental steps made to achieve it. Jordan, I think a golden opportunity was missed by not putting sysconfig into /var from the beginning. -- Paul Richards. Originative Solutions Ltd. (Netcraft Ltd. contractor) Elsevier Science TIS online journal project. Email: p.richards@elsevier.co.uk Phone: 0370 462071 (Mobile), +44 (0)1865 843155