On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 12:13 -0800, Florin Andrei wrote:
Ok, so then here's my not-so-pet peeve: There are all kinds of clever and remarkable things that the rc.d system is performing, but they are useless if a sysadmin cannot figure them out without either reading up acres of large shell scripts in /etc or chancing upon a bit of documentation that has the relevant info (not that i've seen anything in the docs related to the issue i was describing).
[...snip...]
A lot does appear in /usr/share/doc/initscripts-*/sysconfig.txt, but...
If /etc/sysconfig/nfs is checked by a system script, then please by all means _create_ that file, add some generic content (put in all variables that _could_ be present in that file, but comment out those that are not typically used) and include it in a Fedora Core package.
Same for ifcfg-eth* - now i know that ESSID is a valid variable and i know how to use it, but only after stumbling upon it by chance, when reading some system scripts in /etc.
I would say, whenever a config file in /etc/sysconfig (or wherever) _might_ contain a variable, then it _should_ contain it. Comment it out if it's not used. Add an explanation above. Comments are good - like chicken soup for the sysadmin's brain. Look at /etc/syslog.conf - ain't that thing pretty?
[...snip...]
...this is a great idea regardless. Cf. also /etc/samba/smb.conf, I believe. Start the ball rolling by reading the /etc/rc.d/init.d/??? script, parsing it for variable names, and reading the code to comment it. Generate an example and Bugzilla the result.
Perhaps a good idea would be a tracking bug for this issue and then a bug for each file. Here's what I drew up for NFS, but I will gladly suffer accusations of carelessness if something here is stupid:
# ------------- # Sysconfig default file for nfs # # All variable names appear next to their assigned defaults. # To change the default, uncomment the line and change the value.
# NFS version 2 will be used unless MOUNTD_NFS_V2 is set to 'no' # MOUNTD_NFS_V2=default
# NFS version 3 will be used unless MOUNTD_NFS_V3 is set to 'no' # MOUNTD_NFS_V3=default
# Number of nfsd servers to launch # RPCNFSDCOUNT=8
# Location of rpc.rquotad, or set to 'no' to disable # RQUOTAD=`type -path rpc.rquotad`
# Extra options, other than the above # RPCRQUOTAOPTS=
# Default is to use portmap # LOCKD_TCPPORT= # LOCKD_UDPPORT= # RQUOTAD_PORT= # MOUNTD_PORT= # -------------------
I haven't BZ'd this since I wasn't sure if anyone agreed with my suggestion, but will do so if I can get a second on the motion.