From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 7 04:24:57 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5905D1065670 for ; Thu, 7 Aug 2008 04:24:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tim@clewlow.org) Received: from clewlow.org (clewlow.org [210.215.149.194]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E35658FC15 for ; Thu, 7 Aug 2008 04:24:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from tim@clewlow.org) Received: from 192.168.1.100 (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by clewlow.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F0F7D1C081D; Thu, 7 Aug 2008 14:06:38 +1000 (EST) Received: from 192.168.1.10 (SquirrelMail authenticated user tim) by 192.168.1.100 with HTTP; Thu, 7 Aug 2008 14:06:39 +1000 (EST) Message-ID: <52107.192.168.1.10.1218081999.squirrel@192.168.1.100> In-Reply-To: <78c6bd860808061934l133d8ca6nabbde8cd55cb1d27@mail.gmail.com> References: <78c6bd860808061934l133d8ca6nabbde8cd55cb1d27@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 14:06:39 +1000 (EST) From: "Tim Clewlow" To: "Michael B Allen" User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.13 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal Cc: hackers@freebsd.org, wbentley@futurecis.com Subject: Re: Idea for FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:24:57 -0000 > On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 7:14 PM, wrote: >> To who it may concern, >> >> I am A FreeBSD administrator as well as a Solaris Administrator. >> I use >> BSD at home but Solaris at work. I love both OS's but I would like >> to >> increase the administrative capability of FreeBSD. >> >> In Solaris 10 the Services Management Facility (SMF) was >> introduced. >> Basically what it does, is take all the rc.d scripts and puts them >> into >> a database to manage. Everything is converted to XML > > XML is good at document processing and for portable self-describing > databases. Otherwise, I would think significantly less of any OS (or > application) that used XML for configuration data. At least nothing > that anyone would *every* be forced to edit manually. > > But of course the format of data in a database is largely > irrelevant. > You could implement the same thing with dbm files or a more > forgiving > text format. > > As for getting rid of rc.d scripts, yes they're decrepit and I would > love to see them go but they're simple and third party software may > depend on them being the norm. > > Just my 2c, > Mike > > PS: I'm not a FreeBSD "hacker" or even an admin. > _______________________________________________ I believe the puppet project has a lot of potential, or if not the project then at least the ideas behind it, in regard to automating administrative tasks. I particularly like the way it allows the automation of the same tasks across different operating systems. http://reductivelabs.com/trac/puppet/ Cheers, Tim.