Re: Request for Comments: Standardize enabling/disabling of system services
On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 03:04:10PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> * Using policy-rc.d, which is at least underdocumented. I've used Debian
> for a long time and I still have difficulty figuring out just what I'm
> supposed to put where to disable a specific init script for a specific
> service using the policy-rc.d layer and how that interacts with the
> system boot process.
Answer: it doesn't interact with the system boot process at all, it only
affects the behavior of invoke-rc.d. :(
> I think that renaming and/or removing the init script symlinks is the
> Right Thing To Do, but the tools we have for doing this are awful. I
> think it would be a great solution if update-rc.d gained the following
> features:
I think this should be a separate program, reserving update-rc.d for
maintainer script use. But please, not 'chkconfig', which is an entirely
unintuitive name. :)
> * An option intended for use by automated processes that reports the
> current status of the init script (enabled or disabled) and the current
> run levels and sequence information in an easy-to-parse fashion.
> * A way to disable an init script while retaining the current runlevel and
> sequence information so that when it's re-enabled, it goes back where it
> was.
Agreed.
> * A way to move an init script at a particular sequence to a different
> sequence without breaking the rest of the world, overriding local
> policy, or killing puppies. (Unless dependency-based boot takes over
> the world in time for squeeze and renders sequence information obsolete,
> which would be lovely.)
I think this really needs to be resolved by deprecating the sequence-based
init approach entirely. Or getting rid of file-rc, which is the fly in the
ointment any time maintainer scripts try to fix up init script sequence bugs
currently.
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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