[RFC][Change-Request] Create usefulness in rc.subr etc/rc.conf.d/*.conf namespace.

[Garrett Cooper]

On May 8, 2011, at 12:13 PM, Jason Hellenthal wrote:

> 
> List, - Please reply-to freebsd-rc at freebsd.org
> 
> Recently I have been going over some changes in the configurations that 
> are possible with the rc subsystem and to my dismay I have found some 
> inconsistencies with in particular the way rc.conf.d directory is 
> processed and the arguments that are supplied to load_rc_config so I have 
> patched it up...
> 
> Let me explain:  As determined by rc.subr load_rc_config, config's from 
> rc.conf.d are loaded by the scripts $name as an argument to load_rc_config 
> and thus only the name being parsed is is available to be used in the 
> rc.conf.d directory. Why is this bad ? Its not! but it is inconvenient as 
> the user has no direct way to know that a variable used by nfsd is also 
> needed by mountd or the same for various other scripts in the rc.d 
> directory. At this time these config's are explained to be available for 
> the user to utilize by rc.conf(5) but yet without much knowledge of the 
> inner workings of the rc subsystem it would be quite the feat to do.
> 
> 
> The attachment[1] keeps this functionality the same while introducing a 
> more convenient approach for the user to modularize their configuration 
> however they see fit within a couple constraints that work very well. 
> 
> 
> What does it do ?: As stated above, current functionality is undisturbed 
> while allowing the user to create config's by any name they so desire as 
> long as it has an extension of ".conf", also introducing the ability to 
> turn a configuration file off by using chmod(1). You can turn nfsc1.conf
> off/on by simply chmod [-/+]x etc/rc.conf.d/nfs1.conf
> 
> 
> Why ? Simple. How many times have you been bitten by disabling something 
> in the rc.conf file and left to discover what you just disabled was also 
> used by another daemon but that daemon is now not starting ? This is a way 
> to virtualize your configuration allowing you to add multiple _enable= 
> lines to different configurations for different roles. For instance 
> rpcbind is used by both samba and nfs*. With this you can add 
> rpcbind_enable to both a configuration for samba and nfs and when you 
> disable one service you know that you have not disabled a dependent for 
> another.
> 
> 
> This is a small addition that fixes currently broken undesirable aspects 
> of the configuration system that deals with the rc.conf.d directory with a 
> SysV style init approach that is just as flexible. This should apply 
> cleanly to current and stable/8 & 8.2-RELEASE systems. Once more feedback 
> has been received Ill update the manual page with any suggestions 
> regenerate the patch to accommodate and file a PR.
> 
> 
> 1). http://patches.jhell.googlecode.com/hg/rc.subr_modular_conf.patch

	Doing:

find /etc/rc.conf.d/ -type f -name '*.conf' -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -perm +111 | while read _modular_conf; do
	debug "Sourcing $_modular_conf"
	. "$_modular_conf"
done

	might be better. There's some more magic that could ultimately be done to make this more secure/robust using "-print0" | xargs, but it's up to you how you might want to go about solving that problem.
	Also, I don't know if depending on a .conf file to be executable is necessarily the best course of action.
Cheers!
-Garrett