Re: /usr/etc and /usr/local/etc?
On Thu, Oct 07, 1999 at 04:59:15PM +0200, goswin.brederlow@student.uni-tuebingen.de wrote:
> Everything thats in /usr/etc is shareable across the same arch and
> /usr/share/etc across all debian systems. If someone finds something
> that should belong there fileing a bug would be the right thing to do so.
>
> > I think if you are going to use /usr/etc, programs should first check
> > /etc, in case the system administrator wishes to override the sharable
> > config file for the given host.
>
> I would rather say that /etc should link to /usr/etc, so deleting the
> symlink and replacing it with a host specific file is enough to
> specialise one host. Also this has the benefit that all conffiles can
> be found in /etc and that no program has to be changed.
I was about to jump in an criticize, when I suddenly realized that you
actually have a good idea ;-)
Just to make things clear, I think you mean link
/etc/file1 --> /usr/etc/file1
/etc/file2 --> /usr/etc/file2
etc, and not
/etc --> /usr/etc
(or at least that is what I would do)
Another alternative might be to create symlinks in a similar way to how
the "stow" package manages /usr/local. I haven't put much thought into
this though (yet). This approach may completely confuse the /etc/rc.*
directories.
The only potential problem with symlinks I see is /etc/init.d. Can this
directory contain symlinks to /usr/etc/init.d without programs getting
confused?
Which brings me to another point (one I also mentioned earlier).
The above suits me fine, and would work fine for my diskless
package. So I am not complaining ;-)
However, certain files under /etc are required on system boot, when
/usr may not yet be available (eg /etc/fstab, /etc/init.d, possibly
/etc/resolv.conf unless hostnames aren't used in /etc/fstab, others that
I may have missed). I am sure other people may get upset at not being
able to boot without /usr present ;-)
True, I could hack a solution, similar to my /etc hack that would mount
/usr before init is executed (allowing *everything* to be a symlink as
long as individual programs don't get confused), I am not sure if others
would like this method.
--
Brian May <bam@snoopy.apana.org.au>
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