Re: How can I modify /etc/inittab?
On Fri, Sep 09, 2005 at 06:10:25PM -0400, Joe Smith wrote:
>
> "Henrique de Moraes Holschuh" <hmh@debian.org> wrote in message
> 20050909200859.GA792@khazad-dum.debian.net">news:20050909200859.GA792@khazad-dum.debian.net...
> >On Fri, 09 Sep 2005, Eddy Petri?or wrote:
> >>The application I want to package, qingy, is in fact a replacement for
> >>getty and it needs to modify /etc/inittab.
> >
> >Don't. /etc/inittab is critical infrastructure on every system where it is
> >used, NEVER EVER touch it.
> >
> >Document what the user has to do to activate the package, instead, and let
> >him activate it where he wants, the way he wants.
> The proper way to activate the package *IS* by changing inittab. Only init
> should ever load the program n question because of what the program does.
> Nobody in there right mind would run getty by hand except for debuging.
> This is exactly the same. Basically getty and qingy create consoles on
> (virtual) terminals. That is the job of init. The proper way to tell init
> which console creator to use is via /etc/inittab.
>
> The simple fact though is that as things are you may not edit /etc/inittab
> The only way a package may change *any* configuration file is through a
> well-defined interface, and if it is marked as a conf-file, then even that
> appears to be disallowed by policy.
That is correct; no package may modify a conffile, even the package to
which that conffile belongs.
> Since there is no interface you must instruct the user to edit the file by
> hand. That is all policy allows. If you wish you can file a wishlist bug
> against sysvinit.
You can also provide /usr/share/quingy/make-inittab-use-quingy as a
#!/bin/sh script or maybe even a #!/bin/sed -f script, or whatever,
which does what you want, and document that in README.Debian.
Justin
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