Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 08:46:16 -0700 From: patl@asimov.volant.org To: syssgm@devetir.qld.gov.au Cc: ports@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ports startup scripts Message-ID: <9509211546.AA22308@asimov.volant.org>
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|> What do we need run levels for? As far as I can tell, it's never done me |> any good on the System V boxes I've administered. I want single-user mode |> for serious system munging, and multi-user mode for everything else. The |> rest is useless crap. If, say, cron is spinning madly out of control and you |> want it shut off, is there a run level for that? Nope. You just kill it |> and restart it when you feel like it. What if the printer daemon has hung. |> No run level for that either. It adds no value. First, BSD has run levels. Ok, there's only two - single user and multi; but there are two. Second, most of the time, you are right - single user and full multi-user, with the network servers and clients going are the two most commonly used run levels. But the other levels can be -very- useful to the sysadmin during various less-common operations. (Say, when recovering from some problem. It multi-without-network allows the use of X11 for multi-windowing while working on a problem that may prevent full network access; or for which you need to ensure that there are no outside influences while you are working.) |> All those fiddly little scripts give me the irrits too. Half of them run |> 'ps' in a reckless manner on shutdown in a hope-I-got-it-right attempt to |> find the server they want to kill. Some do that on startup too! That's just lack of cooperation by the servers. Easily fixed by having the servers write a .pid file on startup. (The scripts should then use 'ps -p ...' to verify that if there is a running process with that number, it is the expected service.) |> They are a feeble attempt at enabling and disabling services. If we want |> that sort of thing, let's build some sort of super-server (like init or |> inetd) to look after them properly (plus some system admin tool to flip |> them on and off, and maybe keep track of dependencies on other servers). |> Let's not embrace this particular bit of System V. Can you say KISS ? |> And back to the real problem: how to start services that not everyone has |> installed. |> |> I see nothing at all wrong with pkg_add editing something like /etc/rc.ports |> and having /etc/rc.ports run from /etc/rc. I see something wrong with install scripts editing -anything-. It is orders of magnititude safer to simply copy a new script file into a subdir. |> If you want a read-only root |> filesystem, symlink /etc to some place writable first, then carry on. You |> want /etc to be read only? How do you get anything done? No one adds users |> or changes passwords? No alias file updates? You must have built a custom |> /etc to still be enjoying your life, so add a symlink from /etc/rc.ports to |> /var/some/thing or /usr/local/whatever while you are at it. You must have |> *SOME* writable directories if you expect ports to load! :-) I don't think this is particularly related to wanting to make things read-only. |> Let's keep this as simple as we can. All these grand schemes for hoards |> of shell scripts called from 'for' loops make me nervous. Is it safer in |> one of the other BSD camps? (Only kidding guys! No rocks! Oww!) That makes you nervous, but install scripts editing system control files doesn't? -Pat
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