Proposed guideline for init script files

[Scholz]

bugs.michael at gmx.net (Michael Schwendt) writes:

>> >> /etc is the classical location for configuration files and I
>> >> *expect* that I can edit things there resp. that my changes are
>> >> not lost silently.
>> >
>> > /etc contains things, such as GConf2 schema files, which you are not
>> > supposed to edit.
>> 
>> Then, they do not belong into /etc and should be moved out it.
>
> Even if they contain configuration related defaults?

When the defaults can be changed by the administrator, the schema files
must be %config (at least). When they are static the schema files must
be moved out of /etc.


> Think of them like constants. You *could* edit them, but it would not
> by typical usage in gconftool-2 world, since even site-wide defaults
> are created in different files and in a different way.
>
> There are also normal configuration files in /etc, which are recreated
> ("overwritten"), if a configuration utility is used instead of editing
> them manually.

When files can be changed by configuration utilities, they must be
marked as %config resp. moved to /var (when they are the result of some
postprocessing and not needed for system bootup).


> With such an operation your changes would be lost silently, too.

That's why, other configuration utilities than emacs or vim suck ;)


> I can follow the requirement that /etc must not contain binaries, but
> configuration related static files. I can see the historical importance
> of keeping service initscripts in the configuration area to allow for
> configuration changes directly in the shell scripts.

It would be better to break this historical nonsense instead of trying
kludges like the removal of %config.

afaik, SUSE's initscripts are already outside of /etc.


> But only *if* there is no other place where to customise the service
> config, e.g. /etc/sysconfig.

Sorry, how can a system administrator know which configuration files are
supposed to be editable? Do we require a big fat "### DO NOT EDIT THIS
FILE" header for each initscript? Or require a-w permissions for them?



Enrico
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