Subject: Re: Updating /etc...
To: Michael Graff <explorer@flame.org>
From: Todd Kover <kovert@umiacs.UMD.EDU>
List: current-users
Date: 12/19/1995 14:24:26
 
 > >have /etc/rc source in /etc/rc.config (or something) that goes through
 > >and sets up environment variables describing the configuration, then
 > >have it iterate through scripts in /sbin/startupscripts/*m, letting the
 > >scripts decide if they should run or not based on the environment
 > >variables set.  Have some similar process for shutdown with
 > >/sbin/shutdownscripts that get called if you use shutdown to shutdown
 > >the machine.
 > 
 > No, I think the config files need to be split up as well, and stored
 > in a directory with the startup script.  That way it is just a
 > directory rather than multiple directory thing.

personally, I hate having a zillion different configuration files, and would
prefer one with system specifics (too many different things to remember).
I REALLY don't like having them with the scripts, because part of the
advantage of the scripts as I see it is that you can rdist them out to most
machines, by just having an rdist target like /sbin/init.d or something,
rather than having a complex setup where you don't rdist configuration
files, but you do rdist these scripts, and....

I guess I'd like to see simplicity in all this -- my ideal setup would have
one configuration file that setup what to run and not run, the startup scripts
in /sbin/init.d, (I personally like the "script {start|stop}" method, but 
seperate scripts would be ok too -- though a little more complex), and maybe
/etc/rc-start.d and /etc/rc-stop.d that contained symlinks to the scripts
that specified the order (or you could list them in the order you want them
called in a script, instead -- again this is a little too many places to
change things).  There are a bunch of variations on this (my previous
description was a little messier one), but something simple and easy to 
maintain (read: change around) on an organization wide level are the most 
important to me.

-Todd