[Fedora-packaging] /etc/dbus-1/system.d/ files.

[Matthias Clasen]

On Thu, 2009-05-14 at 09:09 +0200, Denis Leroy wrote:
> On 05/13/2009 02:29 AM, Kevin Fenzi wrote:
> > Greetings.
> >
> > It's come up in the review of a package I have submitted that there is
> > no guideline for /etc/dbus-1/system.d/ files.
> >
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=500437
> >
> > My understanding is that these are not really config files. End users
> > should not be editing them. Many of the packages that have files in
> > there do not mark them as config. Some packages do. I suppose they
> > could be edited by end users, but I wouldn't think it would be very
> > common or desired.
> >
> > Should we have a guideline for them (or add to an existing one)?
> >
> > Should the be marked config or not?
> >
> > Should they not be under /etc/ at all?
> 
> These look to me more like resource XML files than actual configuration 
> files. As such, they are probably more suited for /usr/share/dbus-1/ 
> (which already contains a bunch of other xml files).

That seems like a very weak argument ("the look similar to other files
in that other location") to make a change that will cause a bunch of
needless packaging churn...

> I would not block a review on this though, /etc contains a lot of 
> "pseudo" configuration files like this (GConf schemas for example). From 
> an upstream project perspective, they are configuration files, but from 
> a Fedora desktop user, they are not meant to be modified...

Exactly. This is a big problem with the whole '/etc is for config'
stanza: whats configuration from the dbus daemons perspective is not
necessarily configuration from the distro or user perspective. 

The only thing users can achieve by 'configuring things
in /etc/dbus-1/system are

a) Break their system by preventing the sending of messages that are
needed for a working system

b) Opening security holes by allowing the sending of messages that the
shipped dbus policy was meant to prevent


Matthias