Charlie Summers <charlie@lofcom.com> wrote:
Er...are you sure you mean this? If rc.custom is hard-linked to the list directory's rc.init, and the list directory's rc.init is hard-linked to the "main" .etc/.rc.init, changes between lists would be impossible.
You're right it could be an empty file without any link or linked with etc/rc.init and containing only some basic settings (e. g. for the MTA). But you need rc.init because it's hard coded in flist.
And, frankly, I _like_ the linked rc.init - it allows me to make global changes to ALL of my lists easily (which is something I avoided discussing with the folks who were confused, since changing rc.init kinda blows the single/double mnemonic right outta the water) without mucking with each list's seperate rc.custom.
Yes, you would loose the ability to make global changes in rc.init but on the other side you minimize the risks associated with this ability.
I do agree with you that it's not terribly intuitive, and is something that we on the list tend to go over a couple of times a year because the newbies don't understand it, but it _is_ preferable to not placing the variables in rc.custom at all, or completely destroying the rc.init system of global changes as you suggest.
It would be convenient to have the choice at installation time.
The _simplest_ fix is to add this to the to of .etc/rc.custom in the distribution:
# Default values are commented with one "#", non-default with "##"
That would be helpful although I am sure that this will not prevent similar questions. I would like to have a configuration file which is easier to understand and to read with other programs. It's handy if you can unset a variable without an equal sign but it's kind of weired and you are getting difficulties if you have to parse such files. I wrote a tool for the remote list configuration and it was much easier for me to pre process rc.custom and remove all the the single/double hashes and the variables without equal signs than to find a way to handle it unmodified. I think configuration files should have a clear syntax. rc.custom/rc.init aren't such files. Werner