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Re: mysteries of /etc/default/*



hello...

thanks for all your answers. i think it is now clear to me.

* Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> [2004-07-19 09:20 +0200]:
> Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder wrote:
> > On Thursday 15 July 2004 15.15, Martin Dickopp wrote:
> > > Sebastian Henschel <debian@kodeaffe.de> writes:
> > [/etc/default]
> > > See Policy 9.3.2.  (Disclaimer: IANADD.)
> > 
> > Which does only say:
> > | To ensure that vital configurable values are always available, the
> > | init.d script should set default values for each of the shell
> > | variables it uses, either before sourcing the /etc/default/ file or
> > | afterwards using something like the : ${VAR:=default} syntax.
> > which isn't much.
> 
> A few bits that you missed:
> 
>      Often there are some variables in the `init.d' scripts whose values
>      control the behaviour of the scripts, and which a system administrator
>      is likely to want to change.  As the scripts themselves are frequently
>      `conffile's, 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 should be sourced by the script when the script runs.  It
>      must contain only variable settings and comments in POSIX `sh' format.
>      It may either be a `conffile' or a configuration file maintained by
>      the package maintainer scripts.  See Section 10.7, `Configuration
>      files' for more details.
> 
> 9.3.5. Example
> --------------
> 
>      The `bind' DNS (nameserver) package wants to make sure that the
>      nameserver is running in multiuser runlevels, and is properly shut
>      down with the system.  It puts a script in `/etc/init.d', naming the
>      script appropriately `bind'.  As you can see, the script interprets
>      the argument `reload' to send the nameserver a `HUP' signal (causing
>      it to reload its configuration); this way the system administrator can
>      say `/etc/init.d/bind reload' to reload the name server.  The script
>      has one configurable value, which can be used to pass parameters to
>      the named program at startup; this value is read from
>      `/etc/default/bind' (see below).
> 
> ...
> 
>      Complementing the above init script is a configuration file
>      `/etc/default/bind', which contains configurable parameters used by
>      the script.  This would be created by the `postinst' script if it was
>      not already present, and removed on purge by the `postrm' script.
>           # Specified parameters to pass to named. See named(8).
>           # You may uncomment the following line, and edit to taste.
>           #PARAMS="-u nobody"
> 
> It's really not that hard to run less on policy and type /etc\/default

right, i forgot that possibility, sorry. at least now there is a thread
about this topic to be found in the mailing-list archives. :)

cheers,
 sebastian
-- 
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::: lynx -source http://www.kodeaffe.de/shensche.pub | gpg --import

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