Re: smf manifests in pkgsrc

[Jonathan Perkin <jperkin%joyent.com@localhost>]

* On 2015-01-11 at 00:25 GMT, Paul B. Henson wrote:

> I've used postfix from pkgsrc on Solaris and derivatives for quite some
> time, with a local smf manifest I wrote to control them. I noticed when
> I recently updated postfix that pkgsrc now installs an smf manifest
> itself, which is cool.
> 
> However, the FMRI of the pkgsrc postfix package is
> svc:/pkgsrc/postfix:default. The FMRI of the bundled sendmail service is
> svc:/network/smtp:sendmail. The local smf manifest I had been using with
> pkgsrc postfix uses a FMRI of svc:/network/smtp:postfix.
> 
> For some random service not provided by the OS, it doesn't really
> matter. But if somebody is installing postfix, they're no doubt using it
> to replace the native sendmail package. Other services that need mail
> typically depend on the generic FMRI svc:/network/smtp, a dependency
> that is met by the specific instance svc:/network/smtp:postfix, but not
> by svc:/pkgsrc/postfix:default. So when you try to start one of those
> services, it either fails to start because of a missing dependency or
> tries to start svc:/network/smtp:sendmail which conflicts with postfix.
> 
> Is there any chance that for services that replace existing OS services,
> there could be a policy of using an FMRI whose generic part matches the
> OS service, and just uses a different instance name? For example:
> 
> svc:/network/smtp:pkgsrc-postfix
> svc:/network/ntp:pkgsrc-openntpd
> svc:/system/system-log:pkgsrc-syslog-ng

This would require a large rewrite of how SMF is handled and how
variables are substituted, would break a lot of users who already
depend on the current naming scheme, would require the addition of
hard-coded FMRIs, and would remove the ability for users to have
separate SMF prefixes (e.g. if they want to have multiple branches
installed).

We (Joyent) have not had any reports of users requiring similar
functionality, so it's not something I will work on, but if you are
able to come up with a patch which supports the functionality you want
without breaking existing users and that can be cleanly integrated I'd
be happy to take a look.

Regards,

-- 
Jonathan Perkin  -  Joyent, Inc.  -  www.joyent.com