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Date:      Wed, 04 Oct 2000 21:13:55 -0700
From:      Doug Barton <DougB@gorean.org>
To:        Neil Blakey-Milner <nbm@mithrandr.moria.org>
Cc:        FreeBSD Hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.org>, Sheldon Hearn <sheldonh@uunet.co.za>
Subject:   Re: Making /etc/defaults/rc.conf a configuration file.
Message-ID:  <39DC0003.713CF2B7@gorean.org>
References:  <20001003033245.A63319@mithrandr.moria.org>

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Neil Blakey-Milner wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> With these patches, and the new tiny util 'sourceconf', we can make
> /etc/defaults/rc.conf and /etc/defaults/periodic.conf configuration
> files again, such that they can be parsed by things other than 'sh'.

	I have been very sick the last few days, so I haven't commented on this
yet. 

> It also allows you to set 'rc_conf_files' (or, actually, whatever you
> set filevar to) in lower places than the default file, so that you don't
> change the default file.

	Can you give more details about this process? I'm not sure how it would
work to change the list of conf files other than in the default location
if you're going to source the defaults anyway. 
 
> This only shows how to replace things using rc.conf - changing scripts
> to use periodic.conf is as simple as replacing
> 
> if [ -r /etc/defaults/periodic.conf ]
> then
>     . /etc/defaults/periodic.conf
>     source_periodic_confs
> fi
> 
> with
> 
> rcfile=/etc/defaults/periodic.conf listvar=periodic_conf_files .  /etc/sourceconf

	But you're basically doing exactly the same thing(s), just in a
different order. With all due respect to Neil, I stated previously that
I feel like this is a solution in search of a problem. I'm not arguing
for the status quo necessarily, I'm just concerned that when something
comes along down the road that *does* need to do something differently,
we will end up redoing all of this stuff again. 

	For what it's worth, I do not oppose the change, however I would like
to see some comments in the sourceconf file as to what is going on where
and why. I can't help feeling that sourceconf_start and sourceconf_dosrc
could just as easily be in the same function, but in my current state
I'm probably missing something. Also, in the sc.patch the entry for
/etc/rc has ". /etc/sourceconfs" instead of ". /etc/sourceconf". 

	In any case, if the patch has been thoroughly tested under a variety of
different configurations, it's probably worth putting in -current. It
would probably be worth comparing what you're doing here to the work
that's happening on the rc files in netbsd that some here have discussed
bringing over, in whole or in part. 

Doug


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