Re: Linuxconf
--On Sun, May 31, 1998 12:00 am -0300 "Steve Kostecke" <steve@kostecke.net>
wrote:
> In article <[🔎] 320938.3105550397@jmlb2.trin.cam.ac.uk>,
> jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Jules Bean) writes:
>> If we were to move to a database-based configuration set-up (which is
>> probably a Good Thing), then we could easily make it backward compatible
by
>> creating an etcfs filesystem, mounted as /psuedoetc or some such,
>> (conceptually a bit like /proc) which has drivers which make it appear to
>> contain config files of the format programs expect to read - except that
>> they are dynamically generated from the underlying database, and don't
>> really exist.
>
> Thats fine. At least until the day I have to boot my system from a rescue
> disk and then mount my root partition to fix a config problem. How am I
> supposed to edit one of these non-existent /pseudoetc files on my root
> partition?
Well, the system I'm imagining would almost certainly have to run from the
root partition - it might well even have to be kernel resident. So it would
still be there.
There could be a case for listing a set of system-essential files which are
always kept as text in a real /etc. But plenty of config files are *not*
potentially fatal - httpd.conf, sendmail.cf, exim.conf..
>> Potential advantages of this system are the ability to have linked tables
in
>> the database, so that you only have to update one item, your FQDN, and
you
>> can expect your exim.conf, your apache/httpd.conf and your hosts file all
to
>> stay in sync.
>
> Another potential advantage to "such a 'registry' system" could be the
> occasional "Windows-like" registry corruption.
True. And we should be cautious about such a system. But just because
someone else has done an idea badly, it doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.
Back-ending onto some RDBMS makes it *much* simpler to move defaults between
machines - which is a priority for a certain kind of user...
Mind you, it looks like we're going the linuxconf route, so I'm just keeping
this thread alive out of interest.
Jules
/----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------\
| Jelibean aka | jules@jellybean.co.uk | 6 Evelyn Rd |
| Jules aka | | Richmond, Surrey |
| Julian Bean | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk | TW9 2TF *UK* |
+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+
| War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left. |
| When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy. |
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