Re: Policy Question: Startup Scripts and Config Files
On Tue, Apr 17, 2001 at 10:43:00PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> Hi,
>
> the upgrade-checklist says:
The upgrading-checklist starts by saying:
The checklist below has been created to simplify the upgrading process of
old packages. Note, that this list is not `official.' If you have doubts
about a certain topic, if you need more details, or if you think some
other package does not comply with policy, please refer to the Policy
Manual.
> | - If your package has a daemon startup script in /etc/init.d/,
> | and that script has parameters a system administrator may need,
> | you need to modify the script to read values from a conffile
> | placed in /etc/default/ directory. This conffile maybe sourced
> | by the init.d script to determine the configurable values (and
> | the conffile may contain only variable settings and comments).
Go read the relevant section of the policy itself, I think you will
find your question answered. (Search policy for /etc/default, it's
section 10.3.2.) To quote:
Often there are some values in the ``init.d'' scripts that a system
administrator will frequently want to change. While the scripts are
frequently conffiles, modifying them requires that the administrator
merge in their changes each time the package is upgraded and the
conffile changes. To ease the burden on the system administrator,
such configurable values should not be placed directly in the script.
Instead, they should be placed in a file in ``/etc/default'', which
typically will have the same base name as the ``init.d'' script. This
extra file can be sourced by the script when the script runs. It must
contain only variable settings and comments.
> I have a package where the init script contains most of the package's
> functionality, and parses a free-format config file
> /etc/$PACKAGE.conf. That file is not a shell script and can't be
> directly sourced.
So you seem fine: you don't have the options in the init file itself.
> Can I keep that file as /etc/$PACKAGE, should I move it to
> /etc/default (probably not), or do I have to re-work that file as
> sourceable file that is then sourced by the init script?
Yes, you can keep it.
> Do I need to keep the init script as a conffile even if there are "no
> admin serviceable parts inside"?
Yes. Someone might conceivably want to change bits.
Julian
--
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Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, Queen Mary, Univ. of London
Debian GNU/Linux Developer, see http://people.debian.org/~jdg
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