Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 13:01:41 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Knobs in /etc/sysconfig Message-ID: <199605140331.NAA21899@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <26275.831977422@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at May 13, 96 01:50:22 am
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Jordan K. Hubbard stands accused of saying: > > [ Digging deep into his pile of mail for which an answer was warranted but > not given, Jordan yanks forth the following hoary gem - wow, July of '95!] Was I even born then? 8) > > It's impossible to embed _all_ of the intelligence required into these > > comments, and overdoing it is harmful to your sanity, but minimising the > > keyword-specific intelligence required for processing would be nice 8) > > I think it's already on the borderline of `overdone' as it is, so you > won't catch me willfully adding to it. :-) Nonetheless, it looks like > a more than reasonable start. Hmm. Possibly the only strategic change I'd be inclined to make would be to keep all the 'template' intelligence somewhere else out of the way (/var/config/sysconfig.hints?), and just emit the settings and comments as /etc/sysconfig. The "problem" we face is that we want to please the user community, not dictate to them 8) So we can't say 'use the new tool or else', because there're are pile of people who feel that 'vi' is the only truly useful system administration tool, and we don't want to alienate them 8) > > Some other proposals : variable name prefixes. I've already proposed > > KBD and NET, I'll add PKG_pkgname for package-specific stuff (in a > > Packages section). > > > > As far as types are concerned, I see current use of : > > > > Boolean : ON/OFF > > OneOf : one of a,b,c,d > > ListOf : none or more of a,b,c,d > > String : some string value > > StringBoolean : some string value or OFF (or NO or something similar). > > FQDN : qualified name (dotted address style) > > IPADDR : a dotted-quad value. > > Pathname : a pathname > > > > I can see possible use for : > > > > Mailaddr : a mail address > > Device : a device name > > > > And I'm sure I've missed some. > > Hmm. Seems like "StringBoolean" is just a degenerate case of "OneOf > YES,NO,OFF,ON" or whatever, but aside from that the selection seems > fine to me. StringBoolean was meant to handle things like the sendmail_flags case, where NO has mystic significance. An editor would devolve it to an Off/On selector and an entry field for the value, but in reality it'd be desirable for the value to persist across an On/Off/On transition, so we'd probably do it as NET_sendmail_enabled=YES NET_sendmail_flags="-bd -q30m" > I like it! Why don't we do that already? If you knew how the sysconfig > munging in sysinstall worked, you'd barf - we need something better. :-) Hmm. Preferences? Embed it all in /etc/sysconfig (and make it vulnerable to editor damage, but obvious to the user), or use a seperate template? > Jordan -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] Collector of old Unix hardware. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
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