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Date:      Sat, 2 Feb 2002 10:59:53 +0000
From:      Thomas Hurst <tom.hurst@clara.net>
To:        current@FreeBSD.ORG, stable@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Junior Annoying Hacker Task
Message-ID:  <20020202105953.GA71726@voi.aagh.net>
In-Reply-To: <20020202110330.C16801@freebie.xs4all.nl>
References:  <5F46C986-16DB-11D6-8CEC-00039359034A@mac.com> <3C5B3225.F04B9B18@mindspring.com> <20020202110330.C16801@freebie.xs4all.nl>

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* Wilko Bulte (wkb@freebie.xs4all.nl) wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 04:26:13PM -0800, Terry Lambert wrote:

> > Does someone want to write a "registry editor" program?

rc editor.. registry would imply it's going to be used generally, where
as it'll be a cold day in hell before anybody lets rc.conf leak out of
the rc system.

> > Then we can all be honest with ourselves that the only difference
> > between it an the Windows Registry is that the Windows registry is
> > accessible/modifiable from kernel mode, and the path component and
> > key names.

The Windows registry is also extremely deep and complex.  If we really
want to emulate it, we'll also need to store where every dll is on the
system behind sha1 hashes and then dump 99% of them in /lib and the
other 1% in random locations on the filesystem, after renaming them
to less obscure names (libsablot.so -> sbtxmlpr80.dll, libperl.so ->
prllng5.dll, etc)

After doing that, we'll have to work hard to make every application and
tool on the system move their configs to it, leaving us with a nice and
clean /etc.  People who want a text file can have a 30MB text file
that's slow but easy to edit, and everyone else can use a dbm.

I don't see how what we have now even remotely resembles that.  We don't
even have a proper hierachy, and even if we did, hierachies are not only
limited to the Windows registry.

Maybe some sort of hierachy would be good..

/etc/rc.conf/services   # sendmail, bind etc
/etc/rc.conf/security   # firewall, secure levels
/etc/rc.conf/system     # library paths and other low level tweakables

> I would add differences like: the M$ registry is bound to be
> corrupted,

I've only come across a handful.  Equally I've come across Linux systems
where things similar to the registry (in this case, the Debian package
list, erk) were corrupted.

> is only accessible by obscure tools,

The system calls to access it seem to be quite well known :)

> is for the best part not documented

Just because nobody's seen any, doesn't mean it's not documented.  I'm
sure it's there somewhere, nested deep on Microsoft's website, with
such obscure search engine keywords attached that I can't even begin to
think what they might be.

> In other words why should FreeBSD adopt something like that?

Irony value :)

-- 
Thomas 'Freaky' Hurst  -  freaky@aagh.net  -  http://www.aagh.net/
-
I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity
for everyone, but they've always worked for me.
		-- Hunter S. Thompson

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