Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 05:39:42 +0000 From: Kevin Way <kevin.way@overtone.org> To: Sean Chittenden <sean@chittenden.org> Cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: NetBSD-style rc.d Project Message-ID: <20020227053942.B91597@bean.overtone.org> In-Reply-To: <20020226191104.A55023@ninja1.internal>; from sean@chittenden.org on Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 07:11:04PM -0800 References: <20020226051811.K52727@blossom.cjclark.org> <20020226191104.A55023@ninja1.internal>
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* Sean Chittenden <sean@chittenden.org> [27-02-02 04:05]:
> I'm about to dive into doing some work for an rc system for the ports
> (${PREFIX}/etc/defaults && ${PREFIX}/etc/rc.conf) and have an interest
> in learning about the way they've done things. Does their paradigm
> completely obsolete the rc.conf concept? Were there any docs/project
> pages regarding the RC effort that I could peruse for ideas? -sc
No, the NetBSD paradigm doesn't obsolete the rc.conf concept at all,
in fact rc.conf is still used in a functionally identical manner, though
NetBSD and FreeBSD don't share a common set of variables for the file.
(Though I've done some rather trivial work towards that end)
The NetBSD rc.d rystem is a wonderfully simple concept. Instead of having a
large rc script, that's hard to modify programmatically, you have a
a collection of small scripts, each of which contains a line stating
what it provides, and what it requires. An external program, rcorder,
parses these small scripts, takes the PROVIDE and REQUIRE lines, and
performs a topological sort, thus making it much easier to be assured
that services are started in the proper order, and that all dependancies
are fulfilled.
The NetBSD rc.d system, does not by any means solve every problem.
There's a huge class of problems, most of which also exist in the current
system, which are not solved by this system. If you want to read far
more than you could ever want to read on the various problems of the
NetBSD system, and various bikesheds that could improve it, see the
archives, circa June 2001. Please, please, please, do not make yet
another attempt to expand the scope of the project into something which
will not be easily implemented and accepted.
If you want to see what I did back in June, nab the tarball from
http://overtone.org/rc.d/ it includes my initial work, along with a
rough TODO and some minor NOTES I made while doing the work.
Good Luck,
-Kevin Way
--
Kevin Way <kevin.way@overtone.org>
http://www.overtone.org/
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