How to set device permissions at startup

[Aryeh M. Friedman]

Oliver Fromme wrote:
> Aryeh M. Friedman wrote:
>  > Oliver Fromme wrote:
>  > > Roland Smith wrote:
>  > > > But one has to run '/etc/rc.d/devfs restart' for newly added rules to take
>  > > > effect! (or reboot the system, which is overkill).
>  > > 
>  > > Yes, of course.  I thought that was obvious.
>  > > 
>  > > > Maybe I whould add that to the manual page for devfs.rules?
>  > > 
>  > > Agreed, that might be an appropriate clarification.
>  > 
>  > It should be included because not everyone uses the standard /etc/rc.* 
>  > hierachy.   For example I have a completely custom rc which before I did 
>  > an other hack to make this issue not an issue read:
>
> Well, if you completely rewrite /etc/rc, then you're on
> your own anyway, and you're supposed to know what you're
> doing.  In general it is not a good idea and will lead
> to serious foot-shooting.
>
> By the way, what is the reason that you don't use the
> standard rc(8) facilities?  I don't see anything in you
> custom script that wouldn't be covered by them.
>
>   

Mostly a matter of style... namely I personally like to know every last 
detail of how my machine boots (even having the hald and dbus onestarts 
is too much relience on "magic code" (code that works but is overly 
complex and hard to understand) but I was not able to deduce by reading 
their startup srcipts/man pages/ps -agx listings what args they needed 
so had to use the rc.d's)... in general it is a "bad thing" to have code 
that is not 100% user understandable (read not 100% author 
unreadable)... the metaphor I often give is it is like the difference 
between a modern computer controlled car and say a model T or VW bug 
(the first being so complex that only an expert can work on it and the 
second being simple enough that any mechincally inclined owner can work 
on it)...

same thing with devfs (an other common example is ipfw and natd [those 
man pages are greate because if you read them close enough it tells you 
everything you need to know to set up a vpn router/firewall from 
scratch).... there are a number of cases where stuff is not fully 
documented for stuff like this in the base system and/or ports 
(sysutils/fusefs-ntfs is a classic example because it fails to state 
that you need to export the PATH with /usr/loca/sbin on it)

Bottom line 99% of the "weird" aspects in my rc (calling rc.d's and 
such) are due to incomplete documentation