Re: [opensuse-factory] RFC: configuration files in /etc

A short summary: Application configuration files: Do something similar to what systemd is already doing today (See https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.unit.html#Examples, "Overriding vendor settings"). Put the default, by a Linux distributor shipped configuration files somewhere below /usr, and /etc only contains the overwrite. This sounds like a lot of work, but in reality, many applications we have on openSUSE Tumbleweed alredy support different locations for configuration files and overwrite of them, like sysctl, dracut, PAM and many more. For this, this is only a packaging exercise and rpmlint checks. System databases: This are files in /etc like rpc, services and protocols. We can put them somewhere below /usr, and /etc/ only contains the changes. A glibc NSS module could merge them automatcially, different implementations do exist already today for this. /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/shadow: This is the big, open problem. We looked at many possible solutions, but didn't found the real, generic one. So, what is the expected outcome of this mail? 1. We need to agree, if we want to solve the problem or not In my opinion, there is no real choice, if we don't do it coordinated as Linux distributor, this will happen in a chaotic way. 2. We need to agree on the goal, so for me, this would be: - short term: solve the problem for packages on openSUSE MicroOS - mid term: solve the problem for openSUSE Tumbleweed - long term: /etc/ only contains admin created files, a Linux Distribution does not install there anything 3. We need to agree on a path below /usr for the default configuration files 4. We need to agree on how we want to solve it.