Ho all,
I hope I can manage to assemble the following collection of odd thoughtlets
into a coherent proposal for y'all to dissect:
1) The use of ASCII text files for system/program configuration is a
Goodness.
2) Grouping these ASCII configuration files in a common place (instead of
scattering them throughout the system) is also a goodness
3) There exists a mountpoint that (mostly) contains these files in a
(mostly) common space - /etc
4) This implies that /etc, as well as being a filesystem, is also a
hierarchical registry/namespace of sorts. Poorly organized, with way too
much stuff at the root level of the hierarchy, but still a registry.
5) This makes /etc "special" to a certain extent. Not "special" like in
/dev, where reading/writing to a file makes a physical device do something,
but "special" in that if I alter the contents of a file in /etc, then the
configuration of my system changes somehow. That change may be immediate,
or deferred to boottime, or whatever - but change /etc, and you change the
system setup.
6) There are special files in /proc that serve similar functions - change
them, and system setup/configuration/operation is altered somehow.
Based on this, why don't we:
1) Organize /etc into a properly sorted hierarchical namespace. Yes, a lot
of this is userspace, and there's a lot of historical compatibility issues,
but I see value in organizing things into directories like
/etc/network/hosts, /etc/daemons/mail/sendmail.cf and so forth. A good rule
of thumb would be "no files at the /etc root level"
2) Move the special files that change system operation/configuration out of
/proc (which really should be just for processes) into an /etc root level
mountpoint, perhaps as /etc/dynamic or some such.
3) On a related pet peeve, standardize on a ~/etc directory to store
user-specific configuration files/directories, instead of a billion
freakin' dotfiles in the user root directory
Comments?
DG
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun May 07 2000 - 21:00:10 EST