Bug#759316: Document the use of /etc/default for cron jobs
Charles Plessy, 2014-08-27 06:56+0900: I am unsure what the standard practice is in this situation. Can you and others comment on the existence or not of alternatives, in Debian and elsewhere ? The only alternatives I know of are: 1. to put all the configuration in the cron job script itself; 2. to put that configuration somewhere else in /etc. If we document the use of /etc/default to configure cron jobs without considering alternatives, the risk will be to push towards a Debian-only standard, or worse, to push maintainers to modify upstream cron jobs using a legitimate way to configure, but not using /etc/default. Well, I think there are mostly two kind of packages that use cron jobs. First, software which use is partly based on a cron task, like logrotate, sks, apticron, popularity-contest, etc. For these packages, the cron job is normally provided in the upstream source, and for what I have seen, if needed they usually refer to a configuration file located in /etc but not /etc/default, like /etc/sks/cron.conf. And second, software for which a cleanup or update task, while not essential to their use, is useful and has been added by the Debian package maintainer, like apache2 or bsdmainutils for instance, a configuration file /etc/default/package is used. My opinion would be to keep packages of the first type as they are, as the cron job is part of the upstream source and should not be modified (unless it does thinks like violating the FHS, that is). In fact, my proposal was rather to issue a recommendation for Debian packagers when they have to instal a cron job and allow the user to alter its behaviour with a configuration file. -- ,--. : /` ) ن Tanguy Ortoloxmpp:tan...@ortolo.eu | `-'Debian Developer irc://irc.oftc.net/Tanguy \_ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#759316: Document the use of /etc/default for cron jobs
Package: debian-policy Severity: wishlist -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 Hello, For practical reasons, variables that are used to configure init scripts behaviour are placed in separate files in /etc/default, as documented in Policy §9.3.2. The same is often applied to cron jobs as well, for the same practical reasons as crontab jobs are quite similar to init scripts (being both configuration files and scripts, and containing both configuration and code). But, contrary to init scripts, this practice is not yet documented in the Policy. I think this practice would be worth adding to the Policy, as it is both useful and already used with no opposition as far as I know. If that seems relevant, I can write a patch for that. Regards, - -- Tanguy Ortolo -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJT/D1rAAoJEOryzVHFAGgZUd8P/18b/q48c575Ur43BBpidc3D F/GOLMmSzKK6mmcl9qhUHgGLIvddbaKTS1P0/eYr1B2naEvpYE8T0Q3/fIklfy9B NYo9pDQvgoR6H8azWvH+TwgX/Yd5mZyIpSLBbg7hpUi1DYBytolGMNBWWT2uiJYO tULX8huLatwF1ufEZPDPS8Hcjz2jHxNdEhB0QHJkWkSwRpIftgUKCjNKvYyByYxD OQbI3ELCE4KOOPYM6YZUNgdtePr/v38CDsx+ro8QmXwqJGKK7xDbNmgdbBQgDB/c P04imnyLxtgqkxrfJuTcoISIpETavLsYxsBfhMNISuQuEY3KaGXakh9GUIDHyMPQ hRrGCNfzO2iAUAPmteRjUUctKN1xEZ9yxAneVQHvMiCVZD9fl1aSADBIi7lgk0KC YYJ0sKKIHUvXVnD9wTY27mObmYnqO+h5HHnZDKGq4Lz44PntzX+VIdlVb0j3k4H5 sijwKEmYOlR4HX4nz7nehBMJyj7BPPOOw2+UmYeZtR7CTAqOFmiqYGgD3pCeaoqV f6vPmzP4A8mS+QdcFCdi9Kchdh/Gf9rBKgOtu+RRtdTwK32eN2uOOb3j3dvK88Ql VOvPPNfwEQb9YbJCIQQX4HjYsEc7HMfECGrKCJCZkyWDr1rKd7xpqw8TOlJ7fiE3 Dy2kE+J31bteSZB4NxC+ =NiNG -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#759316: Document the use of /etc/default for cron jobs
Le Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 09:55:29AM +0200, Tanguy Ortolo a écrit : For practical reasons, variables that are used to configure init scripts behaviour are placed in separate files in /etc/default, as documented in Policy §9.3.2. The same is often applied to cron jobs as well, for the same practical reasons as crontab jobs are quite similar to init scripts (being both configuration files and scripts, and containing both configuration and code). But, contrary to init scripts, this practice is not yet documented in the Policy. I think this practice would be worth adding to the Policy, as it is both useful and already used with no opposition as far as I know. If that seems relevant, I can write a patch for that. Hi Tanguy and everybody, I am unsure what the standard practice is in this situation. Can you and others comment on the existence or not of alternatives, in Debian and elsewhere ? If we document the use of /etc/default to configure cron jobs without considering alternatives, the risk will be to push towards a Debian-only standard, or worse, to push maintainers to modify upstream cron jobs using a legitimate way to configure, but not using /etc/default. Have a nice day, -- Charles Plessy Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
