Re: Please remove rcconf
On Mon, 08 Mar 2004, Michael Stone wrote:
> >There is evidently a lot of confusion surrounding this issue.
> >Something should be added to the Debian Reference about it.
>
> Luckily there's already something in debian policy:
Unfortunately, it is totally useless.
> By default update-rc.d will start services in each of the multi-user
> state runlevels (2, 3, 4, and 5) and stop them in the halt runlevel (0),
> the single-user runlevel (1) and the reboot runlevel (6). The system
> administrator will have the opportunity to customize runlevels by simply
> adding, moving, or removing the symbolic links in /etc/rcn.d if symbolic
> links are being used, or by modifying /etc/runlevel.conf if the file-rc
> method is being used.
>
> Note the part about removing? It's in there because that was always a
> supported action. The policy specifically states that you can remove
> symlinks to manage them, and it also specifically states that the
> package shouldn't reinstall symlinks as long as any one of them
> remains--specifically to support removing some of them.
And where does it define WHAT should be done if you remove symlinks?
This *is* the whole problem, as you must have noticed by know.
I have nothing against documenting that it means the init script system
must refrain from doing ANY changes to the service state, and fixing
all the other tools so that happens, mind you. But as it is, this is
NOT what happens, and it is NOT documented anywhere that it should be
so, either (AFAIK).
I *do* think it is bad behaviour for the system to have it work in "no-op"
mode. Users could get weird breakage during upgrades if they are not
extremely aware of what they are doing... AND this is dependant on the
service itself, to make matters more confusing.
Can we just document this to be "Service state is not modified on runlevel
changes involving that runlevel"? At least, that is not a dangerous, nor
broken behaviour.
--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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