Feature request

Mike Meyer mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df at mired.org
Mon Mar 31 14:26:40 PDT 2008


On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:18:56 -0700 (PDT)
Patrick Dung <patrick_dkt at yahoo.com.hk> wrote:

> 3. Support LDAP SSO out of the box
> 
> Linux/Solaris/AIX have native LDAP SSO support.
> I have asked about this feature before.
>
> The problem is whether it should integrate OpenLDAP to base system.

Why OpenLDAP? Why not one of the other ldap implementations available
in the ports? In particular, do any of them already have plugins for
use with pam?

> BTW, I see ISC Bind, Sendmail and Amd automounter is in base.

Yes, but you're asking to move a major chunk of functionality into the
base from ports. That doesn't really happen very often, for lots of
good reasons. Those reasons are often used to suggest that the
packages you just named be moved *out* of the base system, but that's
not much easier than moving things into it.

The other issue is - well, how much use is this for ports? After all,
most of the servers you're going to install come from ports, so if
they don't play here, then there's not much of a win.

> 4. LVM and file systems
> As of FreeBSD 7.0, ZFS is ported.
> This is great as FreeBSD do not have LVM in the past.

True, there's no "volume manager" per se. On the other hand, most of
the functionality provided by a volume manager is available through
the geom system. Frankly, geom is a lot saner than the volume managers
I've dealt with.

> I am sure there is still room for improvement.
> For example: ZFS/UFS shrink support, native file system journaling.

Um, is something wrong with gjournal? Or for that matter, soft updates
(which solve the same problem that journaling does, only with lower
overhead)? 

FreeBSD is an open source, volunteer driven project. A list of "nice
to haves" is cool for your personal use, but if you want to actually
make any of them happen, then you're the best person to do
that. Either start coding yourself, or convince somebody else to do it
(and you'll find cash offers work fairly well). Even then, it may not
make it into the base system. Being available as a port is often
considered sufficient, or it may be that your changes aren't
considered appropriate for some other reason, like duplicating
functionality that already exists.

      <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.


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