The Strengths and Weakness of Fedora/RHEL OS management

[Bill Crawford]

On Wednesday 29 March 2006 00:59, Shane Stixrud wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Mar 2006, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> > dhcp snippet (dhcp is not on here so hopefully this snippet is valid):
> > default-lease-time           21600;
> > subnet 10.202.46.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
> >    use-host-decl-names      on;
> >    option log-servers       10.202.46.2;
> >    host ws001 {
> >        hardware ethernet    00:11:22:33:44:55;
> >        fixed-address        192.168.0.1;
> >        default-lease-time   10000
> >        filename             "/lts/vmlinuz-2.4.26-ltsp-1";
> >    }
> > }
> >
> > Here's the same thing in .ini style:
>
> [snip]
>
> > I'd argue that as the number of subnets and special case workstations
> > goes up, the ability of a system administrator to read and understand
> > the flat file is going to be markedly harder than for the admin to read
> > the custom-crafted dhcp-config syntax.
>
> And I would agree for the .ini format.

 Really?

 How does .ini format give you containers beyond the first level? By numbering 
the keys? ugh.

 The dhcp config file format is a much better match for a) the way people 
think if they know the problem domain b) allows *hierarchy*. XML at least 
gets that right (and I *don't* think xml is the answer).

> But things change considerably 
> when instead we deal with all configuration elements as keys and their
> values in a filesystem like structure.

 And this is the issue. Look at the mess that is SNMP MIBs. Can you read 
those? Can you?

> I can now do: 
> "cfg_prog -export .ini/dhcpd/xml/etc.. /system/dhcpd/subnet 10.202.*"
> where my default editor may be emacs, vim, gedit or a super config editor.

 Word.

 That's the first actual argument I've seen on the opposing side ;)

> Shane.