Re: Why does modules.conf go in /etc, anyway?
>>"Anthony" == Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:
Anthony> (a) needs to be available, and modifiable when only / is mounted
Anthony> (b) needs to be available when only / is mounted
Anthony> (c) needs to be available and modifiable when only local
Anthony> fses are mounted
Anthony> (d) needs to be available when only local fses are mounted
Anthony> (e) needs to be available and modifiable after network
Anthony> fses are mounted
Anthony> (f) needs to be available after network fses are mounted
Anthony> (a) shouldn't be supported, and (e) and (f) should be and
Anthony> can be placed in /var on all systems. Further (f) alone
Anthony> covers the *vast* majority of configuration files.
/etc/auto/ would meet these guidelines, except possibly a, if
/ is initially mounted ro.
The reason I am pluggin /etc. and why I think this is distinct
from the run time varying files in /var, is that /etc/auto files
ought to be only modified during installs; we do not expect files to
be popping up in /etc/auto.
The other part why this is really important to retain in /etc
is that people have expectations of just backing up /etc and
/var/lib/dpkg/ to preserve the state of a machine; and we should nto
lose the invariant of backing up /etc and preserving all
configuration information.
Anthony> Note that the only major change that would break things in a default
Anthony> configuration would be trying to setup /var as an NFS mounted drive.
Anthony> Another possibility (even more symlinks!) would be something like:
Anthony> /etc/managed-directories/
Anthony> atboot-access/
Anthony> local-modify -> /var/lib/managed-directories
Anthony> local-access -> /var/lib/managed-directories
Anthony> /etc/network/ifstate ->
Anthony> /etc/managed-directories/local-modify/ifupdown/ifstate
Anthony> which would mean that if you wanted to make /var a network
Anthony> drive, that you could find all the files in
Anthony> /var/lib/managed-directories referenced via a local-modify
Anthony> or local-access symlink and move them somewhere more
Anthony> appropriate. Something like:
I would prefer if this variant also was under /etc somewhere,
but otherwise me like-um.
Anthony> Food for thought: would we be better or worse off if dpkg conffiles
Anthony> suffered a similar fate (say, /etc/managed/dpkg/squid.conf)?
If it works for some configuration files, it should work for
others, even if they happen to be conffiles.
manoj
--
"It's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble, it's what we
know that ain't so." Will Rogers
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
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