[Gllug] Sluggishness and confusion

Bruce Richardson itsbruce at uklinux.net
Thu Feb 10 11:31:52 UTC 2005


On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 10:31:47AM +0000, Steve wrote:
> Bruce says:
> 
> <snip>
> {implied Redhat's} 
> 
> > core configuration files are explicitly designed to
> > be maintained by interactive tools - interactive X tools, these days!
> 
> I (and many other people) administer large numbers of production
> redhat servers without any difficulty, and without ever going near an
> interactive (X or curses) tool.

It's all Linux underneath, so it can be automated and scripted.  The Red
Hat configuration system is unnecessarily obstructive, however.

> > The old curses tools are still there but try using them and you get
> > warnings that they are not supported and don't have all the features of
> > the GUI tools.  That. Is. A. Joke.
> 
> No - its consistent with attempting to improve interactive tools.

Bollocks.  There's no reason why you cannot have hand-edited
configuration, curses tools and GUI tools all supported and working
consistently.  Other distributions have managed this.  Not only would
that approach be more flexible it would be more resilient and
consistent, as it would require the development of a standard low-level
interface that any higher level tool can work with.  That's basic good
system design method.

> If
> you want an interactive tool, chances are you're the kind of person
> who would appreciate the chance to use a well designed graphical too. 
> For backwards compatability, keep the curses tool, but point the user
> to a better alternative.

Why only have the full functionality in the GUI tool?  The user
interface and the administrative logic should be entirely separate, with
the latter being identical in both tools.

> 
> Again - if the admin doesn't want the interactive tool - ignore it. 
> You don't even have to install it.

But you are then administering your box in a fashion that is explicitly
unsupported and vulnerable to change.  RH have said up front that the
only supported way to administer these systems is via the GUI tools,
that the configuration files should not be manipulated by other methods.
Given that and that the config internals are undocumented, they are
perfectly within their rights to change the details without warning and
you will have no basis for complaint.

You don't even have to wait for a new release.  Given that the low-level
admin interface is undocumented, you can never be confident that any
extensions or modifications you make will not conflict with some
official tool that you haven't yet installed.  Suddenly you have a new
requirement, you install the appropriate tool and it all goes bang.

I'm not slating Red Hat's config system from a position of ignorance,
which is all too often what you see when somebody disses their
unfavorite distributions.  I may have switched my allegiance but I have
been administering Red Hat boxes for the last 8 years or so.  I have
hacked my way through every section of the RH configuration scripts at
one time or another and I have never been impressed by them.  The xinit
scripts were, for a long time, so bad that I had a web page up
explaining how to make them more useful and I used to get a lot of mail
about it.  

-- 
Bruce

Bitterly it mathinketh me, that I spent mine wholle lyf in the lists
against the ignorant.  -- Roger Bacon, "Doctor Mirabilis"
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