On Wednesday 30 January 2008 01:19:46 am Kokhong Cheng wrote: > Hi all, > > Thanks to Joel and Chris for your feedback and ideas. I have yet to > study all available solutions mentioned, but I would like to make > further comments. > > Instead of the superficial middle layer interfaces, I'm more focused on > the core system facilitating the systematic storage and access of > configuration parameters. I believe that such a centralized system is > not so well received right now due to several factors, namely inertia > (towards the old system), uncertainty towards a new, undefined system, > and also the bad example of the Windows registry. > > First, I speak not of user interfaces to generate configurations, i.e. > Webmin, linuxconf, etc. These generate old style configuration files in > the end. I am talking about implementing this at the operating system > level, yes, just like Windows - having a central registry where all > applications store and access their configuration. Applications till > Win3.11 still used INI files, very much like conf files. But nowadays, > pretty much every Windows application is using the registry. I believe > this can be done for Linux applications too, provided the interface to > the configuration system is clearly defined. > > The registry is a beast, yes, but I think it is the particular > implementation and the organization of the Windows registry that puts > most people off; of course regedt32 is horrible too. But apart from > that, I think they have pretty much figured out what a registry needs to > be. I don't think the /etc is very friendly either. Well, at least > /proc/sys is well organized; in fact it is exactly how we should be > modeling the management of userspace application configurations! > > The config manager will be backed by a structured data-store. Most > systems I've seen use either the .reg format or XML format. I personally > feel that it should be backed by a REAL database, e.g. SQLite instead of > being an XML file. >
Interesting idea, let's throw a few thoughts around shall we? First of all, why the inclination towards a REAL database format? What are the pros that a DB offers, over flat files? Speed might be one, but how big are conf files going to get? What I am worried most about, is the idea of storing all your eggs in one basket. What happens if the registry gets corrupted? How good are the tools to recover them? Putting all configurations together + using a binary format for them = bitch when you need to recover something. Best have a backup lying around, cos when that's dead no daemons will be able to boot. Also, one will have to take note of what happens if a user wants to install a program by themself? For example, I have specific builds of mplayer/mencoder that is not available with rpms. They have their own conf files under /home/waipeng/etc/xxx/. In this case, you need to put aside parts of the registry for user. Just some thoughts for now, maybe other weird cases will pop up while working. Cheers! Wai Peng _______________________________________________ Slugnet mailing list [email protected] http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
