Init : someone could comment this ?

[Les Mikesell]

Nils Philippsen wrote:

>>>> I think, when somebody wants to run a server, he has to understand how
>>>> it works and how to configure it.  When admin can not figure out correct
>>>> cmdline options, how can he configure the server in a secure manner?
>>> Along that line, everybody should be able to run configure && make &&
>>> make install and wrap their own packages, so why should we bother ;-)?
>>> Seriously, I can cope with command line arguments and still like
>>> sysconfig files that are more understandable than just plain
>>> "OPTS='--foo -x=y -a'". I'm happy if I get things done without having to
>>> read the documentation for the common case. I'm not saying admins
>>> shouldn't be able to influence the cmd line options directly if they
>>> wish.
>> If you change that to some abstraction that you think is easier to 
>> understand, how do you propose (a) that sysadmins that already knew the 
>> real options should deal with the now confusing abstraction
> 
> E.g. like with the old /etc/sysconfig/hdparm, you could use "speaking
> options" but have an "HDPARM_OPTS" variable (or some name like that)
> which would just passed on the command line.

And how is someone supposed to know that?

>>  and (b) that 
>> the abstraction (and its documentation) always stays in sync with 
>> upstream changes/additions to the underlying program's options?  It is 
>> already fairly messy trying to track what options have been moved to new 
>> locations under /etc/sysconfig in fedora/RH boxes and which are still in 
>> their normal locations.
> 
> That's the job of the maintainer of the concerned package: to ensure
> that sysconfig options he introduced get mapped to the correct set of
> command line arguments. If those change, the mapping has to change.

I think you are missing my point. I run an operating system in order to 
run programs I add myself, some of which supply init scripts which I 
expect to continue to run from one version to the next with no or minor 
changes.  Changing the way a sysv-like init service runs would be sort 
of like the C language changing its keywords.  Changing the 
system-supplied scripts to do things more efficiently is one thing; 
breaking expected system behavior is something else.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com