Proposed guideline for init script files

[Jesse Keating]

On Monday 05 March 2007 00:47:49 John T. Guthrie wrote:
> I do like this idea with two provisos:
>
> 1) That a recommendation be put in about each init script needs to
> include an OPTIONS or PROGOPTS or similar variable on its command-line.
> This allows customization through addition of command-line arguments.
>
> 2) That initscripts be discouraged from putting command-line arguments
> directly in the scripts.  Instead they should be placed in the variable
> from part 1) in /etc/sysconfig/progname.  Putting command-line arguments
> directly into the init script means that I can't remove those arguments
> without modifying the init script.  There could be some exceptions to
> this guideline.  An example would be something to set the uid of the
> program in question, such as adding "-u named" in the script to start
> named.
>
> To my current memory, these two situations cover every time that I have
> needed to modify an init script.  (There might be others I can't think
> of, though.)

I'm more than happy to extend the init scripts guidelines, perhaps into their 
own breakout page that can be read if init scripts are used or ignored if 
they aren't.  However some of this feels more like development guidelines 
rather than packaging.  That's OK I guess, but the line is getting fuzzy.

Feel free to come up with a draft for such guidelines, I'll most likely be too 
busy over the next while to do it on my own.

-- 
Jesse Keating
Release Engineer: Fedora
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-maintainers/attachments/20070305/3a0eca1d/attachment.sig>