On Tue, 2 Dec 1997, Joe Emenaker wrote: > Has much discussion been had about a possible configuration file > management script for the package config scripts to use? > > For example, I installed cron on a Debian box, and then installed mgetty. > Mgetty placed the following at the end of my /etc/crontab: > > #-- mgetty begin > 20,40 * * * * root faxrunq > #-- mgetty end > > Then, when I updated cron, it asked if I wanted to replace my > /etc/crontab. I'm assuming that this would have hosed my mgetty settings, > so I was forced to make the changes to /etc/crontab by hand. > > So, I was thinking... why not have a utility that the scripts would use to > make all modifications to config files.... kinda like what mgetty did with > the "#-- mgetty begin" and "#-- mgetty end"? The only difference is that > *all* packages (even the package that "owns" a particular config file) > would be encouraged to use the utility. In the example, cron would use the > utility to make updates to /etc/crontab, as /etc/crontab would ostensibly > have "#-- cron begin" and "#-- cron end" statements as well. > > Of course, the utility would have to have command switches to alter what > comment character to use... whether the file could be deleted if it was > empty (after removing a section, say).... > > Has this already been discussed and thrown out?
Some time ago, while discussing the install-info utility, that adds or remove lines to the info/dir file, Ian Jackson proposed to follow the ideas implemented in the "menu" package. In a few words: each package provides a little "<config-file>-snippet" file that goes under a well known directory, and an "update-<config-file>" utility rebuilds the config file using all the snippets it finds under that directory. That way it should be easy to implement an "update-crontab", (taking care of not removing lines added by the system administrator). It would be even better to have a single general tool like: "update-configfile --file=<config-file-name>" to manage menus, crontabs, info/dir and similar config files. -- Enrique Zanardi [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dpto. Fisica Fundamental y Experimental Univ. de La Laguna -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
