[1215] in SIPB_Linux_Development
package reorganization
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Emil Sit)
Sun Jan 28 15:17:14 1996
To: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 15:16:51 EST
From: Emil Sit <sit@MIT.EDU>
As most of you probably know, I'm working on reorganizing the
Linux-Athena package distribution method. In addition to making it
more of a Slackware Diskset, I would like to make some observations
and propose some redistribution of the files within various packages.
* In the a.out tree, I don't think anyone uses mhbb.tgz, so it can
likely be deleted. We don't have an ELF version of this, probably
since Sal didn't compile one, that I can find.
* To have a reasonably useful Athena login procedure, one needs
/usr/athena/lib/init/*, /bin/athena/login, and athdir (possibly
more). These files are currently located in three different packages:
xlogin, ktelnet and misc. I think we should have a base_login
package (or some such) which provides what is needed for a basic
login. xlogin should overlay on top of this additional files which
would be necessary to have dm/xlogin run.
* Some files, (eg machtype) are in more than one package.
* To have a reasonable athena distribution, several files in /etc have
to be modified/created. I have written a rc.athena and a rc.conf
file which I think we should distribute instead of letting users
wait for our delayed documentation to come out. Derek suggested that
we have install/doinst.sh in packages (or something similar) which
would modify rc.conf as new packages were installed. These rc files
should probably be distributed in some sort of base required
package. We might want to package mit-named and sendmail.cf stuff
into it.
Incidentally, rc.conf is distributed with reactivate. I prefer the
above suggestion. reactivate also wipes /tmp every time someone
logs out; I think it should check [ ${PUBLIC} = "true" ] before
doing that.
* Global athena wide logins (ie via telnet) should be disabled by
default. That is, noremote should be created at least. I had a
discussion over Zephyr about this a few days ago. Allowing this on
by default is similar, IMO, to leaving systat and netstat ports
operational by default on a system.
I do think that Linux-Athena users should at least add their own
passwd information to the /etc/passwd file --- or at least have an
additional backup account so that they can login as someone other
than root, should they need to.
* The sendmail package should either have an updated sendmail (I think
the binary in there is an a.out from last january) or not include
a binary at all and trust the one that is there. This might be a
problem for distributions which use Smail as a default, but I don't
really know anything about Smail. The .cf file probably should be
installed by default. (The .cf file has Mlocal P=/bin/mail.local;
this is probably broken behavior if we do not distribute binaries.)
I have begun modifying the tagfiles that for various disksets so that
an Athena installation of Slackware can be done by default. I'll
probably ask someone to look at them when I'm done.
fubob suggested (in November :) that we have a WWW page for Linux
docs and stuff, which I think is a good idea. I have html-ized
the one-sheet, which can be put on, for starters. Currently
in /mit/linux/people/fubob/html/linux-net-install.tex. The one sheet
should be moved out of people/fubob and reincorporated with the
project/doc tree (need someone in gsipb to do this).
Oh... and it'd be nice to have a project leader. Nobody seems to be
leading now. warlord has expressed a willingness to do this when he
gets back in March, but until then, it would be nice to have someone.
This person could be me, or someone else, but somehow I doubt anyone
else will volunteer.
Comments please.
Emil
--
Emil Sit | E-mail: sit@mit.edu or esit@bxscience.edu
http://www.bxscience.edu/~esit/ | PGP Public key available on request
