Re: Package automation in /etc/daily

[Julio Merino <jmmv%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 4:46 PM, David Laight <david%l8s.co.uk@localhost> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 05:42:35PM +0100, Bernd Ernesti wrote:
>> * it can cause more workload on ftp.netbsd.org and exceed the connection
>>   limit on ftp.netbsd.org if a lot of systems use it
>
> Actually, since all the systems in a timezone will connect at
> roughly the same time (2am local time), the whole thing is
> probably a very bad idea!
>
> In fact, since the list probably changes infrequently, a mailing list
> update scheme would be more appropriate.

Except that we don't have this now and we have been using and
advocating a different scheme, so I'm not planning to change it.  I'm
just trying to make things easier for initial configuration of a
machine with packages installed.

We have had audit-packages for ages, and we have encouraged everyone
to use it.  Even more, we have even provided sample crontab entries,
showing the exact same scheduled time for everyone.

OK, I understand this can be a problem, so we can change the default
values for the new variables to "no".  Only the few that read the
documentation will know that such functionality exists and that it can
be easily enabled.

-- 
Julio Merino