Re: Init scripts as conffiles
Hi, Michael:
On Tuesday 15 February 2011 18:37:38 Michael Fladischer wrote:
> Tony Houghton, 2011-02-15 17:33:
> > I was wondering, why are init scripts installed as conffiles?
>
> Debain switched to dependency-based boot with Squeeze and those
> dependencies are controlled by the LSB headers inside each init script.
> On the majority of my systems init scripts are modified to reflect
> individual requirements of services during boot (e.g. openvpn before
> certain services or similar). Having init scripts installed as conffiles
> prevents such setups from breaking after each upgrade.
You highlighted a very valid issue: one of the main points in going to a
dependency-based init system is the ability of the sysadmin to reorganize the
bootup sequence (since it's expected he knows better to workaround/reorder
his local corner cases). Since dependencies are stated in the init file
itself that makes it automatically a config file.
Anyway, my position would be that init script shouldn't have to be config
files. For this to be true these steps should need to be worked on:
1) See for boot dependencies not being stablished in the init script itself (a
sourced directory under /etc/defaults?)
2) All init scripts whose related daemon accepts params on start or that
define any kind of "global" variable (i.e.: not strictly related to Debian
internals) should source an /etc/default-related file.
3) *Maybe* think about a general way for any init script to source from some
file/dir if it exists.
4) Once developers are comfortable that the vast majority of init script
honour these previous points, deprecate init scripts as being considered
config files and file as a bug any time a sysadmin really needs to still edit
one of them.
Maybe steps 1,2 should be considered even if init scripts remain being
considered technically config files.
Cheers.
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