Can "/etc/rc.conf" be replaced with a symlink?

[Joshua Tinnin]

On Sunday 27 February 2005 08:11 pm, "Clay" 
<crs.freebsd_mailinglist at users.nuaptools.com> wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> I am for the most part a newbie to FreeBSD.  I am wanting to move
> some config files from their standard location to a single directory
> and create symlinks for each.  Doing this will allow me to more
> easily maintain and backup the files.
>
> dhclient is able to use dhclient.conf when symlink'd.  Apache seems
> to also work when httpd.conf is symlink'd.
>
> Can "/etc/rc.conf" be replaced with a symlink?  I have done and the
> file isn't being read/found.  Moving the actual file back to /etc
> fixed the problem.

I am not entirely sure, but to hazard a guess, this isn't working 
because rc.conf loads before the other filesystems in /etc/fstab are 
mounted, and you have the actual rc.conf file on one of those 
filesystems (though you didn't specify). Apache (httpd) and dhclient 
run after they are mounted. Thus, you would be able to symlink rc.conf 
as long as the actual file is in the root filesystem (I think), but I'm 
not sure if that's a good idea - it might be alright, just never done 
it before.

- jt