[LONG] RH refugee comments & questions
Hi everybody,
As just installed my 2 first debian boxes (a workstation, and a server),
I found a couple of things a bit disturbing.
First of all I must say that I use RH since 3.0.3 (I began with slackware),
and I talked about these "problems" with my debian-fanatic friends :),
before posting.
I guess that every RH ask you this: :-)
Why don't you use something like chkconfig to manage the starting/stoping
of daemons?
More precisely, I know there is something called update-rc.d, which has
basically the same goal, but without the cool stuff: the default values.
Why are the default values S20 & K20? Are all the services supposed to
be started at S20? I guess not.
I read quickly the archives about this and the typical example I found was
with apache, and apache isn't really the network service I'd start with
S20apache :).
In other words, I wonder if update-rc.d was created to be used in post-install scripts
with the correct values only. It's not for the average admin who'd like to have an
hint on a default value for SK values of a network service.
I know that every server is different, and default values can change, but 20...
I read a couple of comments on the XXX-way to disable a service:
mv S->K, rm the S lines, uninstalling the package, etc.
In the good old days I did a find -exec rm :).
Now, I'm a bit older, and a bit lazier so a chkconfig --del suited my needs
(as would an update-rc.d remove).
Some people look in rc?.d/* to see if a package is installed, I just look in init.d/
(I don't like having too much stuff in rc?.d/: it's less readable, and a waste of
time at boot).
My problem is when I want to reactivate a service. With chkconfig I can
do it like a charm. With update-rc.d I have to remember all the parameters,
or maybe look at the postinstall script (didn't check this, so I may be wrong
on this one :)).
This second problem is much disturbing for me:
playing with update-rc.d I saw that it was generating a rc2.d/S20apache.
Starting apache at run level 2???
Looking in /etc/inittab, I also found:
id:2:initdefault:
Why does debian use the run level 2 instead of 3, as usual, to activate
network?
Even in the LSB you can read:
0 halt
1 single user mode
2 multiuser with no network services exported
3 normal/full multiuser
4 reserved for local use, default is normal/full multiuser
5 multiuser with xdm or equivalent
6 reboot
Why the hell did the debian developpers changed that?
An other feature that I miss is the [ OK ] [FAILED] at boot for the
rc?.d/ stuff. You can think it's just a fancy thing, and in fact you're
right as long as there is only green OK displayed on the screen.
The red FAILED displayed is very interesting, especially when you
expected that everything should be fine.
Why the old inetd is used instead of xinetd? AFAIK xinetd is more
secure, has more logging option, has the tcp-wrapper, and provided
you have a default /etc/xinetd.conf + /etc/xinetd.d/, it's even easier
to add/delete services (or does a desintallation script remove a line
from /etc/inetd.conf?)
The funny part is that when I wanted to replace inetd with xinetd,
dselect asked me if I really wanted to remove netbase. So I still
have inetd AND xinetd installed :).
What else?... Ah yes. I had the bad habit to make a new install without
checking all the hardware drivers that were in the box. For example,
when I installed a RH 7.3 on a Dell PowerEdge 2600, everything was
detected, and installed like a charm. With the woody, I had to get
a driver for the e1000 card on the net, and compile the driver for the
raid card (perc4) on my workstation to procede with the install.
This wasn't especially annoying, but I was a bit surprised to go some
years backward...
Well, I guess I should stop here for a first mail (even if we're still at boot
stuff) :o).
Note that even if I don't mention them here, there are things I like
in the debian (otherwise I would have switched to something else).
Please, don't misunderstand me, I didn't write this to bash on debian,
I'm just looking for a way to get the best of both worlds, or at least
to get the answers to questions that disturb me.
Cheers,
Patrice.
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