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Re: 2 ftpds packages conflicts



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Hi,

Gerrit Pape wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 06, 2006 at 11:34:14PM +0100, Sz?kelyi Szabolcs wrote:
>> can anyone tell why ftpds do conflict with each other and why httpds do
>> not?
> 
> Actually the httpds should conflict too as they install listeners on
> 0.0.0.0:80.
> 
> E.g.:  With no httpd installed, install the apache package, apache will
> listen on 0.0.0.0:80; now install the thttpd package, it'll work fine,
> but no thttpd daemon will run afterwards, because it fails to bind to
> 0.0.0.0:80, see syslog; reboot the machine, and you'll be surprised to
> see the thttpd daemon run, and not apache, because thttpd gets started
> first.

There was a saying a few years ago, that comes into my mind regarding
this problem. It read something like this:

  "Linux *is* user-friendly... not fool-friendly or looser-friendly."

Now consider the two choices:

 a) keep Conflicts
    - Novice user not knowing what's happening exactly, tries to
      install two servers providing the same functionality. Installation
      will fail. User doesn't know why.
    - Experienced system administrator tries to install the two
      servers. He exactly knows what he wants. He won't be able to do
      so. Experienced system administrator gets mad. Someone mentioned
      earlier, he could rebuild at least one of the servers after
      removing the "Conflicts" field. Experienced system administrator
      gets madder. This problem typically arises in enterprise IT
      infrastructures, where recompiling the package every time it gets
      updated is *not* an option. Experienced system administrator gets
      absolutely mad.

 b) drop Conflicts
    - Novice user installs the packages in question. *If* he notices
      that there is some problem, looks at logs (as I remember, apache
      tells about the problem on the console, too), searches on Google,
      gets tons of results. After reading three of them, he knows
      what the problem is, he can fix it, he will *understand* what he's
      doing. User is happy.
    - Experienced system administrator installs the packages,
      reconfigures them to use different ports/interfaces/addresses.
      Experienced system administrator is happy.

(*)

IMHO, two servers binding to the same socket "by default", is not enough
reason for them to conflict with each other.

Let me remind you that the case of MTAs is another story.

Bye,
- --
Szabolcs

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