On Monday, 3 June 2019 21:20:55 ACST Thorsten Kukuk wrote:
[...] 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.
We akready have /usr/etc/ where some applications place their configs (or overrides), rather than /etc. Whilst I can see the value of this, I'm not a fan of putting system (or global) configurations under /usr. I can see the sense of having the configs for applications that are installed in (or under) /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin having their configs in /usr/etc/ and /usr/local/ etc respectively, but I'd prefer to see system or global configs (related to anything installed in /bin or /sbin live perhaps in /lib/etc, with admin- managed (or overridden) configs in /etc.
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.
Again, I'd prefer to see them under /lib, rather than /usr.
/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.
Or perhaps it is time to consider a roadmap to deprecating these altogether and moving to an LDAP-based solution? Or is that a bridge too far?
[...]
-- ============================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au CCNA #CSCO12880208 ==============================================================