Bug#601455: general: can't stop daemon using /etc/init.d/foo stop when, disabled via /etc/default/foo

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi,

peter green wrote:

> Though there are some situations where it is nessacery. Consider vtund for
> example which has seperate enable/disable flags for running in server and
> client modes (with the potential for multiple seperate client instances).

Thanks for this clarification.  Luckily vtun's RUN_SERVER option is
not an instance of the DISABLE pattern Mathias mentioned: it does not
work by exiting the init script early, and it does not prevent
stopping the server.

> regardless of any plan to discourage use of the /etc/default
> mechanism (I think removing it altogether is not really reasonable)

To be clear, I didn't mean to suggest that configurability through
/etc/default is something to be phased out or discouraged --- only the
DISABLE variables.  If you consider that unreasonable, could you
explain how, so others can come up with something better that
addresses your concerns?

[...]
> I think
> the original bug of being unable to stop
> a dameon after disabling it in /etc/default still needs to be fixed.

Feel free to file reports against individual packages (especially
reports with patches!).  However, if one wants to make a serious dent
in this in the archive as a whole, it seems worthwhile to take the
extra minutes to move to a saner interface for disabling services at
the same time, instead of just patching the current "pretend you're
running, but don't run" method.

Cheers,
Jonathan