systemd: please stop trying to take over the world :)

[Denys Vlasenko]

On Mon, 2011-06-13 at 12:37 -0400, Simo Sorce wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-06-13 at 18:01 +0200, Denys Vlasenko wrote:
> > > We invoke sethostname() from inside systemd since that is one of the
> > > most trivial system calls known to men and doing this with a
> > separate
> > > binary is just absurd. This way we also can ensure that the hostname
> > is
> > > always initialised which is very useful for early boot logging and
> > other
> > > stuff. On systemd you get the guarantee that the hostname is always
> > set
> > > up if you run in userspace,
> > 
> > You can't possibly know what kind of (possibly dynamic) hostname
> > admin might want to assign to his machine. The static hostname
> > may be as useless as default "(none)" which is set by kernel.
> > Anyway, logging with default hostname is not a catastrophe.
> > 
> > Why do you set up stuff no one asked you to?
> 
> Changing a machine hostname at random times is just asking for trouble.

I just tried it. So far flames don't shoot out of my notebook.


> What's the problem of having a specific hostname set up at boot time?

The problem with having specific hostname I had is when I boot many
dozens of diskless machines off the very same network filesystem,
I definitely DONT want them to use the same hostname.

One method I saw in use in real world in this situation is to assign
hostnames by looking up (MAC_address,hostname) pairs in a database (say,
a config file), and then set the found hostname. Of course, this is not
possible until said database is available over network.

-- 
vda