should file ncrack-services go to /etc?

[Martin Gieseking]

Am 21.09.2009 23:24, Till Maas wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 04:58:32PM -0400, Casey Dahlin wrote:
>> On 09/21/2009 04:04 PM, Till Maas wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 08:47:24PM +0200, Martin Gieseking wrote:
>>>
>>>> during the review of ncrack  
>>>> (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=523199) I noticed that the  
>>>> file ncrack-services is placed in /usr/share/ncrack by default. Since it  
>>>> is a kind of configuration file that contains mappings between port  
>>>> numbers and protocol names (similar to /etc/services), I'm not sure  
>>>> whether the location /usr/share/ncrack is OK or whether it's required to  
>>>> move it to /etc. Here's its content:
>>> Imho it does not need to be moved to /etc, because it should only be
>>> edited by experienced users and then the user can specify a the edited
>>> file at the commandline.
>>>
>> Neither of which are factors considered by the FHS.
> 
> Since the file is not meant to be edited, it is not a host-specific
> config file, but a package version specific config file, which is
> managed by upstream and not by the user. So from the users point of
> view, it's more a data file than a config file.

Casey and Till,

thanks for your comments. If I interpret them correctly, there's no
Fedora policy that demands moving the file to /etc even if /etc could 
also be a proper location. Then we can finish the review of ncrack. :)



> Btw. as far as I understand the program, if the config file is changed,
> then an addional module, which is written in C++, that covers the new
> service needs to be added, too.

Not necessarily. There might be scenarios where you want to change the
default ports for several services, maybe because the ssh daemons in
your local network are configured to listen on port 12345. In this case
the admin possibly would like to adapt the default settings of ncrack.

Thanks again,
Martin