Gentoo Archives: gentoo-amd64

From: Sebastian Redl <sebastian.redl@×××××××××××.at>
To: gentoo-amd64@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: provide net
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 23:06:47
Message-Id: 43B5BD38.5070206@getdesigned.at
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: provide net by Dave Crane
1 Dave Crane wrote:
2
3 >No, whomever made apache2 "need net" instead of "use net" made the decision
4 >for me (negating the admin). Now, I cannot use apache2 locally with my laptop
5 >without changing rc.conf.
6 >
7 >
8 This makes me wonder: is there a simple method /for an initscript
9 author/ to make an appplication require *some* sort of network
10 interface, whether that's a loopback or something else, and another
11 application require some non-local network interface?
12 As this discussion shows, some applications (Apache) are useful with
13 only the loopback, while others (NFS, Lisa) are useless without some
14 external network.
15 The net strict checking setting serves no real-world use case that I can
16 see: it allows a system admin to decide whether all net applications on
17 his machine (and there's no fine-grain control) are useful without
18 external network access.
19 This is too general a statement to make a proper decision about. While
20 the final decision whether an application that has some (perhaps
21 limited) functionality with the loopback should launch if that's all
22 that's available should rest with the sysadmin, this must be a
23 per-application setting, and the first decision must come from the
24 maintainer: whether there is anything useful the application can do in
25 the first place.
26
27 As such, the distinction should exist between
28 need somenet
29 and
30 need extnet
31 . The names are stupid and should change, of course, but you get the
32 idea. The idea, in a way, would be to do away with all the net.* provide
33 special case, and make those net scripts provide one or both of these in
34 the old-fashioned way:
35
36 net.lo
37 -----
38 provide somenet
39
40 net.eth0
41 --------
42 provide somenet extnet
43
44 Definitely not an expert, but the current situation has always struck me
45 as strange. Can someone explain the rationale behind it?
46
47 Sebastian Redl
48 --
49 gentoo-amd64@g.o mailing list