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Home > Archive > Debian Developers > July 2004 > [Fwd: [Discuss] Debconf as an administration tool]
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[Fwd: [Discuss] Debconf as an administration tool]
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| Zenaan Harkness 2004-07-11, 8:48 pm |
| Comments appreciated.
-----Forwarded Message-----
> From: Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com>
> To: discuss@lists.userlinux.com
> Subject: [Discuss] Debconf as an administration tool
> Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2004 15:50:16 -0700
>
> As far as I understand this, not having investigated in great depth:
>
> 1. Debconf can configure most anything that is set up by a Debian
> package to the point that it works. But some more detailed configuration
> is not done through it.
> 2. Debconf is database driven. The default database is a flat file, but
> others can be substituted.
> 3. Debconf works with graphical and textual front-ends. Web front-ends
> may be possible.
> 4. Debconf is internationalized.
> 5. Debconf is currently set up to administer one system at a time.
> Currently it doesn't do clusters.
> 6. Some Debian developers have resisted making Debconf into more of a
> generalized system configuration tool, for reasons unclear to me.
>
> I would hope that any configuration tool we standardize upon could drive
> debconf.
>
> Thanks
>
> Bruce
>
> Matthew Davidson wrote:
>
>
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| David Nusinow 2004-07-11, 8:48 pm |
| On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 10:55:20AM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:[vbcol=seagreen]
> Comments appreciated.
>
> -----Forwarded Message-----
I originally wrote configure-debian for this purpose. Unfortunately, lack of
time and interest from others has prevented it from becoming anything more than
a simple frontend to dpkg-reconfigure. In addition, the current codebase has
issues with the Gnome debconf frontend, so I'm planning a rewrite based on the
recent tasksel rewrite. The main issue is the vast amount of specific
configuration scripts that need to be written for each app, and that is
something I just don't have the time to achieve on my own. If anyone is
interested in working together to carry this out though, I'd be happy to help.
- David Nusinow
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| Zenaan Harkness 2004-07-11, 8:48 pm |
| On Mon, 2004-07-12 at 11:06, David Nusinow wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 10:55:20AM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
>
> I originally wrote configure-debian for this purpose. Unfortunately, lack of
> time and interest from others has prevented it from becoming anything more than
> a simple frontend to dpkg-reconfigure. In addition, the current codebase has
> issues with the Gnome debconf frontend, so I'm planning a rewrite based on the
> recent tasksel rewrite. The main issue is the vast amount of specific
> configuration scripts that need to be written for each app, and that is
> something I just don't have the time to achieve on my own. If anyone is
> interested in working together to carry this out though, I'd be happy to help.
There may be some in the userlinux.com sub-Debian community. I'll
forward your email.
cheers
zen
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| Zenaan Harkness 2004-07-11, 8:48 pm |
| > I originally wrote configure-debian for this purpose. Unfortunately, lack of
By the way, have you seen this project (and how do you think it would
fit in to the picture?):
http://config4gnu.sourceforge.net/about.html
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| David Nusinow 2004-07-11, 8:48 pm |
| On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 11:30:49AM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> By the way, have you seen this project (and how do you think it would
> fit in to the picture?):
> http://config4gnu.sourceforge.net/about.html
I hadn't seen this project before, but it strikes me as being very similar to
both debconf and the gnome system tools. It doesn't look like it'll
interface well with debconf though.
You have to keep in mind that debconf isn't designed to be more than a
wizard-style approach to configurations. This limitation might be problematic
for what you're trying to achieve. The advantage to it is that it forces the
developer to attempt to make elegant choices in configuration schemes, rather
than throw every option at the user. In my opinion though, we already have
webmin and we used to have linuxconf, both of which provide the more complex
set of complete choices to the user. Perhaps what we need is something
different, and using debconf as the frontend might facilitate it.
- David Nusinow
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| Manoj Srivastava 2004-07-11, 8:48 pm |
| On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:55:20 +1000, Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net> said:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> Comments appreciated. -----Forwarded Message-----
Umm. Debconf is just a means of interacting with the user --
it does not parse, or write, any configuration files by itself. The
maintainer scripts do all the heavy lifting.
[vbcol=seagreen]
You mean the maintainer scripts.
[vbcol=seagreen]
The reasons shall become clearer when you look into what
debconf actually is.[vbcol=seagreen]
This is a bug in that package.
manoj
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| Sergio Talens-Oliag 2004-07-12, 7:53 am |
| El Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 10:55:20AM +1000, Zenaan Harkness va escriure:
> Comments appreciated.
Well, a discussion I was trying to start has started in a lot of
forums at the same time (and with different points of view).
My post about it on debian-custom:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-cust...7/msg00049.html
First my comments:
No, it is not debconf who configures the package, the configuration is
done by maintainer scripts, debconf is only used to ask questions to
the user and store and recover it's answers.
[vbcol=seagreen]
Yes, it is not networked, but the debconf answers can be read and
saved with debconf-get-selections and debconf-set-selections to move
values between machines.
[vbcol=seagreen]
Well, here we arrive at my point, I feel that debconf is OK as it is
(maybe adding other optional database backends could be useful, but
actual text files are OK for me), the problem for maintainers is how
to deal with configuration variables stored there.
Let me quote myself:
[vbcol=seagreen]
> I believe that the main problem with debconf pre seeding is that we
> don't have a standard way of using the questions' answers to modify
> the configuration files, if we had one (based on cfengine of
> config4gnu or whatever tool we agree on) the pre seeding used on
> CDDs like DebianEdu would be a lot easier to add to packages (adding
> low priority questions to them with sane defaults for the standard
> Debian distribution).
So, what I feel we need is a tool to apply changes to configuration
files in an easy way.
My original idea was to have a file inside the package with a list of
rules to modify each pair variable/config file which don't interfere
with hand made changes; we need a way of knowing if the file is under
our control or not and if the user wants us to apply changes always or
only when files are under our control (leaving the user modified files
alone).
If we find the tool that uses this rule files we can integrate
everything into debhelper and be able to migrate packages easily.
The main idea behind this was to have an easy way to *customize* some
packages for Custom Distributions, but it can be extended to be a
(limited) configuration system.
So, what do you think?
Sergio.
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| David Moreno Garza 2004-07-12, 5:58 pm |
| On Sun, 2004-07-11 at 20:56, David Nusinow wrote:
> set of complete choices to the user. Perhaps what we need is something
> different, and using debconf as the frontend might facilitate it.
Thing that it's already done via configlets. Although CFG seems to be a
more modular and expansible tool for this purpouse.
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David Moreno Garza <damog@damog.net>
http://www.damog.net/
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