[1216] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Re: package reorganization
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Erik Nygren)
Sun Jan 28 15:51:19 1996
To: Emil Sit <sit@MIT.EDU>
Cc: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 28 Jan 1996 15:16:51 EST."
<199601282016.PAA05692@harlie.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 15:50:52 -0500
From: Erik Nygren <nygren@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.
I like the idea of having a Slackware diskset to simplify
installation. A few days ago I did an install on someone's
machine. It took far too long to get all the Athena stuff
set up right, although I knew exactly what I was doing.
> * 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.
I would agree. We should have a base login package which
gives everything necessary for tty logins (with an install
script that moves /bin/login to /bin/login.local and then
makes a /bin/login -> /bin/athena/login symlink).
xlogin should be in a separate package which works on top of this.
AFS should also be made into a Slackware-like 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.
I like the idea of a base required package, although I'm not sure
that named and sendmail should be there because some people
run Athena stuff not on the MIT network (for example, I want kerberos
and zephyr on my machine while I'm home during the summer).
Before distributing any rc.athena or rc.conf, make sure to
send it here so people can look at 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.
I think reactivate should NOT be run by default on someone's machine.
If they want /tmp wiped out for them, they should have to enable it
themselves. Machines running Linux are still people's private
machines and are NOT public workstations and shouldn't have to be tied
strongly to the MIT net.
> * 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.
/etc/noremote should definately exist by default!!!
Not doing so is irresponsible because it allows anyone to
log in from remote which is very ungood.
> 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.
We should have an "adduser_athena" or something script which
basically takes a username and does:
hesinfo $username passwd >> /etc/passwd
Also, we need to make it very clear in the docs that users
should set the root password right away.
> * 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 think that most distributions are now using sendmail rather than
smail (well, at least Slackware has been for awhile).
> 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.
Maybe add a new tagfile set rather than modifying the defaults?
> 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
We should make a /mit/linux/www directory which contains useful web
pages which are kept somewhat up to date. Have lots of random
out-of-date docs scattered around can be confusing to users.
We should also have a package for people who are low
on disk space which puts all the stuff in /bin/athena and /etc/athena
and then creates the /srvd symlink.
People have been talking about doing this for well over a year.
Feel free to volunteer to organize this if you have time.
You might want to do it in a separate directory and get
it working and tested before installing it for everyone to use.
Erik
