Comment Re:The whole area needs a rethink (Score 1) 358
You couldn't have stated it better, that there is no benefit to making configuration in unix more complicated. How about making it simpler?
Forget to tab in syslog.conf? : comments got you down in inittab, typo in passwd locked you out? Guessing at possible values for /etc/system variables got you stumped?
Granted the lack of structure in /etc has allowed unrestrained creativity, but the knowledge required to navigate /etc successfully is significant and -- I'm guessing --, taken for granted by you and many other long time unix admins like myself.
Without dumbing it down, or removing flexibility, I believe a better way to manage the bits of configuration required by each program would be a centrally managed, accessed, API driven repository for config. And there could be a text editor based "window" into it to anyone that cared to work directly with the data. I don't pretend to know the right way to begin to code this up, but I'm tired of explaining to new admins that are looking to change X in unix, that the only way to know how to find the config file -- is to already know where to find the config file.
Forget to tab in syslog.conf? : comments got you down in inittab, typo in passwd locked you out? Guessing at possible values for
Granted the lack of structure in
Without dumbing it down, or removing flexibility, I believe a better way to manage the bits of configuration required by each program would be a centrally managed, accessed, API driven repository for config. And there could be a text editor based "window" into it to anyone that cared to work directly with the data. I don't pretend to know the right way to begin to code this up, but I'm tired of explaining to new admins that are looking to change X in unix, that the only way to know how to find the config file -- is to already know where to find the config file.
