On 09/06/2007, at 22:23, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 09, 2007 at 09:21:09PM +0200, Julio M. Merino Vidal wrote:
>> On 09/06/2007, at 20:55, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
>>
>>> I should add that changing the default means a lot more work for  
>>> bulk
>>> builds. Keeping the set of writeable locations as small as possible
>>> is a
>>> crucial requirement. /etc/pkg is yet another location. This also  
>>> plays
>>> somewhat havoc with the original idea of self-contained pkgsrc.
>>
>> What is "a lot more work"?
>
> It means more work to figure out what to remove, for example.
> To make it plain, a package should modify files in ${PREFIX},
> ${WRKOBJDIR} and ${VARBASE} only. The latter if possible only at
> runtime... I consider writing to pretty much any other place in the
> filesystem a bug if it can't be scheduled ahead (user creation for
> example).

The package does not modify the sysconfdir directly; it's the install  
scripts that do.  Hence you could disable the installation of  
configuration files (of course, things can break)...

Or union-mount /etc for bulk builds so that all the dirty stuff ends  
up in a well-known place.

>> Do we really want a self-contained pkgsrc or one that integrates well
>> with the system (if built as root)?  If the former, please let's make
>> *everything* self contained and deal with the problems that arise
>> (that goes for VARBASE).  If the later... things can be much better
>> for the desktop user^W^Wsystem administrator.
>
> I wouldn't have a problem with moving VARBASE to a more sensible  
> setting
> either. ${PREFIX}/var is one of those.

Except that it currently points to /var so that programs can  
consistently use directories such as /var/run or /var/log.  (Or  
that's what I was told when I questioned this myself a long while ago.)

-- 
Julio M. Merino Vidal <jmmv84@gmail.com>