BoF Protocol

[Mark Brown]

On Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 03:07:29PM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:

> Whoever conceived and introduced this idea of disabling services via
> /etc/default/$package deserves to be tarred and feathered. It is a
> horribly broken idea. Unfortunately quite a few people adopted this
> scheme.

There's really not much option for daemons that can't be started by
default.  Not installing the init script is generally unhepful for
people who have actually provided the appropriate configuration while
starting before that is obviously problematic.

> Why is using /etc/default/$package bad:
> - Because it makes your init script useless if it is disabled via
> /etc/default/. You aren't able any more to start it manually.
> - It makes the init system inconsistent and ambiguous
> - It breaks graphical frontends. Imagine a user, that tries to
> start/stop a service via a GUI, but nothing happens, because the init
> script just exits.

Note that this only applies to enabling and disabling services via the
init scripts - other configuration such as additional arguments for
daemons doesn't have the same issues.

-- 
"You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever."
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 307 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/initscripts-ng-devel/attachments/20070613/40ae30c9/attachment.pgp