On Thu, Jun 08, 2000 at 11:41:15AM +0100, Graeme Mathieson wrote:
>
> Is there a mechanism for individual packages to update /etc/profile? For
> instance, it's a pest for each of your users, individually, to have to
> update their path to include /usr/bin/mh for nmh.
for PATH updates /etc/profile should be fixed, redhats profile.d
concoction does a horrible job of setting the PATH, i usually end up
with directories being listed twice, a la
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin
ugly ugly ugly
> And putting stuff in /etc/skel doesn't solve the problem of rolling changes
> out to existing users.
/etc/profile, what i mean by using /etc/skel is for things that are
clearly user preferences and not critical to a functioning account.
things like aliases, fancy PS1 prompts etc
things that matter such as PATH and MANPATH do indeed belong in
/etc/profile.
> OK, so cross-shell compatibility doesn't worry me, since bash is the only
> shell used[1]. I have a profile.d directory with a selection of scripts,
> including one to add nmh to $PATH, one to set the default $CVSROOT and
> $CVS_RSH and one to do colour-ls. These scripts are rolled out from a
> config-server (currently just using opt-depot, but eventually using
> cfengine).
why use a bunch of little files? if you just push these to all the
machines anyhow just edit /etc/profile and push that. the environment
is all in one place that users can actually find, and its setup much
cleaner then a kludge sourcing zillions of files scattered about.
i really fail to see why using the already existing system of
/etc/profile (and other shells equivilant) is a problem that requires
a profile.d kludge. one way or another you have lots of files, lots
of files that need to be modified once in a while.
> [1] By policy. No other shells are installed, and users cannot run chsh
> anyway.
first point is true, second point is rubbish ;-)
erb@socrates ~]$ chsh
Password:
Changing the login shell for erb
Enter the new value, or press return for the default
Login Shell [/bin/bash]: /bin/csh
erb@socrates ~]$ cat /etc/passwd | grep erb | awk -F: '{print $7}'
/bin/csh
erb@socrates ~]$ chsh
Password:
Changing the login shell for erb
Enter the new value, or press return for the default
Login Shell [/bin/csh]: /bin/bash
erb@socrates ~]$ cat /etc/passwd | grep erb | awk -F: '{print $7}'
/bin/bash
erb@socrates ~]$
seems to work fine here. and no i have not changed anything in my
configuration in regards to chsh.
--
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/
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