Re: make upgrade overwrites /etc/mail/mailer.conf

[Matthew Dillon <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

:
:On Tue, 2005-02-08 at 11:03 -0800, Matthew Dillon wrote:
:>     I just thought of another idea and that would be to have a special
:>     keyword in /etc/services that tells libc NOT to check /etc/defaults/services
:>     at all.  e.g. something like:
:> 
:>     DISABLE /etc/defaults/services
:> 
:>     or, for compatibility with older scripts,
:> 
:>     ##DISABLE /etc/defaults/services
:> 
:>     or something like that.  Just a thought.
:> 
:> 					-Matt
:> 					Matthew Dillon 
:> 					<dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
:
:I like the first version better, simply because the second would require
:us to have to parse comments. Which seems like a really gross hack.
:
:Why would we want libc to not check /etc/defaults/services anyway?
:
:--Devon

    I agree that I see no reason why we would ever want to disable libc's
    checking of /etc/defaults/sevices.  For one thing, a fully custom
    services file would likely be missing critical name->port translations
    as time progresses and new services become available.  Such service
    demons would almost certainly not be started up by default, but if
    an operator ever were to start up such services they might not work
    because they expect service names that don't exist because the operator
    completely overrode /etc/defaults for no reason at all.

    That would be a good argument for not including a DISABLE facility :-)
    Sometimes simplicity is the better solution and features only add 
    confusion.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>