[1219] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Re: package reorganization
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Emil Sit)
Sun Jan 28 20:38:44 1996
To: Erik Nygren <nygren@MIT.EDU>
Cc: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 28 Jan 1996 15:50:52 EST."
<199601282050.PAA28588@foundation.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 20:38:22 EST
From: Emil Sit <sit@MIT.EDU>
> > 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).
In your case, you would want the named/sendmail stuff in there during
the semester, however. Is it reasonable to assume that most people
using the packages are at MIT? I did notice an athena.tgz file on
sunsite that is pretty old.
> Before distributing any rc.athena or rc.conf, make sure to
> send it here so people can look at it.
It is available in /mit/linux/people/sit/etc/athena. Incidentally, if
people are going to be looking at that, you might want to look at the
one-sheet (text and html) and my ongoing revisions if Linux-Athena in
/mit/linux/people/fubob.
> 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.
The reactivate package is fairly self sufficient. The only problem is
telling xlogin not to bother calling it so as to avoid error messages
in Console. reactivate does do possibly useful things like resetting
zhm and restoring passwd.local.
> /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.
Almost anyone :) I guess we should also mention that one should touch
~root/.klogin. I've set rc.athena to automatically create noremote by
default.
> > 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
Naturally doing a bit more checking than that... I personally like
having most of my stuff on my local HD, as opposed to AFS. This
requires that I manually create myself with local home dirs and such.
It would be easiest to have people just look up their information with
Hesiod, I suppose.
To have such a command would nonetheless be useful in conjunction with
nocreate/noremote.
> I think that most distributions are now using sendmail rather than
> smail (well, at least Slackware has been for awhile).
The question is what local delivery method is used. I installed the
deliver package; what does Slackware do without that package? If we
build athena tagfiles, we can control this, I guess. :)
> Maybe add a new tagfile set rather than modifying the defaults?
Yes... I'm making "tagfile.ath"s
> 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.
Hm... if we are going to be doing package content shuffling, it might
be easier to build a syspack setup first and then build the packages
out of the syspack. However, I like the modular and local approach of
having packages. Building a syspack might be more work. I dunno; never
built a syspack before.
I'd be willing to do that, but I only want to do one at a time. I do
have a particular interest in knowing which way we are going to push
this so that I know what instructions to put in iLinux. For the
moment, I am going to stick with packages.
Emil
--
Emil Sit | E-mail: sit@mit.edu or esit@bxscience.edu
http://www.bxscience.edu/~esit/ | PGP Public key available on request
