>>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin P Neal <kpneal@pobox.com> writes:

Kevin> Would a set of Makefiles be sufficient to build a start script?

It would be neat to have an init which could read a config file in a
syntax similar to a Makefile.  So, for instance, nfsd is dependent on
portmap running.  Portmap is dependent on ifconfig having been run at
some point in the past.  etc.

I would be hesitant to put this much complexity into init, but there
are some arguments for it.  For starters, init is in a good position
to know what daemons are running, since they're all children of init.

If the "Makefile" syntax is much simpler than a real Makefile, then
init shouldn't take too long to parse it.

Kevin> Wouldn't it be useful if failures in, say, the beginning of the
Kevin> script caused the system to drop back down to single-user mode?
Kevin> Past some point the system will just go ahead to multi-user
Kevin> mode, even with errors.

Maybe this should be configurable on a per-package basis.  I don't
want my news server to go multi-user if innd doesn't start, for
instance.

Chris

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------cjones@math.montana.edu
Chris Jones                                          cjones@honors.montana.edu
           Mad scientist at large                    cjones@nervana.montana.edu
"Is this going to be a stand-up programming session, sir, or another bug hunt?"