Re: rc improvements (wanted?)

> On Sat, 19 Jul 2008, Robert Noland wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 2008-07-18 at 22:19 -0700, Doug Barton wrote:
> > > Bernd Walter wrote:
> > > > Speaking about small systems, where startup time is more a problem than
> > > > on 08/15 desktop and server systems.
> > > > What I would love to see is that scripts like moused, ypserv, lpt, etc
> > > > are not started if the services are disabled.
> > > 
> > > That wold be a neat trick, how do you propose we accomplish it? (no, 
> > > I'm not being snide.)
> > > .. 
> > > One way you could do this is to have /etc/rc.d/active and 
> > > /etc/rc.d/inactive (and probably an /etc/rc.d/system for critical 
> > > stuff that most people shouldn't touch). Then you could have a 
> > > vipw-like system to allow users to edit rc.conf that would move the 
> > > scripts to the right directory. Of course, this would be fraught with 
> > > potential for problems. :)
> > 
> > I almost hate to toss this out there, but what about a sys v type rc?
> 
> Usually the scripts are running run_rc_command.
> 
> This does a checkyesno for the rcvar variable which is usually 
> ${name}_enable. In most of the cases it uses set_rcvar to achieve this.
> 
> If so, /etc/rc could evaluate ${name}_enable (it already knows them via 
> /etc/rc.conf) before actually calling a script.
> 
> There are some irregular names amongst the name of the rcvar variable.
> 
> I am not 100% sure whether same of the scripts set ${name}_enable vaiables 
> implicitly. That could complicate things. I could not find evidence by 
> browsing through them.

I went ahead with my idea - to reduce the list rcorder delivers, by eliminating
those that don't have ${name}_enable, and I opened a pandora box :-)
  - dummy dependency like SERVERS/LOGIN don't have ${name}_enable
    nor should have.
  - REQUIERE: xxx complains if xxx is not 'loaded' like in the case
    of NETWORKING requirement of ppp which I don't have enabled.
  - some scripts rely on the existance of a ${file} which is better than
    the original /etc/rc which used to run mountd if /etc/exports existed,
    but does not 'conform' to the ${name}_enable paradigm.
  - some scripts like abi don't have abi_enable, but sysvipc_enable,
    linux_enable and svr4_enable.

All these - and some more that I probably missed - can be fixed, or the 
warnings
ignored, but is it worthwhile?

> 
> I also do not know whether there are scripts that actually do something 
> valuable before calling run_rc_command.
> 
> At the moment it looks to me that these excemptions could be dealt with by 
> adapting the scripts so they meet the standard (running only when 
> ${name}_enable is set).
> 
> I only looked through some of the /etc/rc.d scripts en detail (+ some 
> greps for rcvar etc. in the directory) so it needs some more 
> investigation.
> 
> If it works it avoids messing around with symlinks or moving scripts 
> around, and it reduces the scripts that actually run.
> 
> As a sys admin I really like the BSD way of having everything relevant to 
> my system in one /etc/rc.conf. It is very convenient.
> 
> Regards
> Peter
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