"Chatty" config files in /etc

[Garance A Drosehn]

At 8:48 AM -0400 8/31/06, John Baldwin wrote:
>On Thursday 31 August 2006 06:18, Tom Rhodes wrote:
>>  On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:00:04 +0400
>  > Ruslan Ermilov <ru at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
>>
>  > > No, /etc/defaults are different beasties -- they are true
>>  > default config files -- they are either used if there's no
>>  > corresponding version under /etc, or most likely sourced
>>  > to provide defaults.  To be moved to /etc/defaults, a file
>>  > should gain the same property.
>>
>>  While this comment is blatently obvious: /etc/examples
>
>This is already spelled /usr/share/examples/etc in FreeBSD.

Actually, as it stands right now that is not quite the same
thing.  Right now /usr/share/examples/etc holds *exact copies*
of the files we install in /etc, for the reasons as described
in /usr/share/examples/etc/README.examples :

    The /usr/share/examples/etc directory contains the original
    distribution versions of the files which are shipped in /etc.
    This is intended to make it easy to recover when the /etc
    versions are accidentally deleted or broken beyond repair.

We can obviously change the intent of that directory, but I
noticed that README as I was writing my previous message, and
I wasn't sure if we would want to change the present intent.
(which is why I said nothing about it in my previous message)

One other observation:  The directory /usr/share/examples/pf
holds several files, which are several different examples of
how someone might want to setup 'pf'.  But /etc/pf.conf (and
the duplicate in /usr/share/examples/etc/pf.conf ) give one
specific example that "the project" recommends as a starting
point.  I have no idea if that is a significant distinction,
I'm just noticing that we seem to have that subtle distinction.

>/etc/defaults would just be wrong for examples, that directory
>is for default settings (note that /etc/defaults/rc.conf is not
>just comments, but sets default values for various settings..
>same with /etc/defaults/periodic.conf, etc.)

That is a good point.  I would also be happy with putting such
files in a new /etc/examples directory.  One advantage to
having them all in a directory is that projects like nanobsd
can safely remove the entire directory, and know that nothing
will be broken by doing that.

So I have no strong opinion about where the example files should
go, just as long as the real file includes a pointer to that
location.  I slightly favor "somewhere under /etc" for the
reasons I listed earlier, but would also be happy enough if
they show up in /usr/share/examples .

-- 
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =               drosehn at rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer               or   gad at FreeBSD.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;             Troy, NY;  USA