Re: The purpose of /etc/default ?

[Yitzchak Scott-Thoennes <sthoenna at efn dot org>]

On Wed, Feb 08, 2006 at 06:29:40PM +0200, Jari Aalto wrote:
> 
> The package contributors guide 
> 
>     http://cygwin.com/setup.html
> 
> Is silent about /etc/defaults.

As is FHS 2.3.  I don't even see any discussion of /etc/defaults on
the FHS discussion list.  /usr/share/foo/ may be a more appropriate
place, depending on whether you view these files as configuration
files (since their content is that of a configuration file) or data
files (since they aren't actually *used* as configuration files, just
compared to the live conf file and potentially copied to become the
live configuration file).

> In Debian this directory has specific
> meaning:
> 
>     http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html
> 
>     9.3 System run levels and init.d scripts
>     9.3.2 Writing the scripts
> 
>     Often there are some variables in the init.d scripts whose values
>     control the behaviour of the scripts, and which a system
>     administrator is likely to want to change. As the scripts
>     themselves are frequently conffiles, modifying them requires that
>     the administrator merge in their changes each time the package is
>     upgraded and the conffile changes. To ease the burden on the
>     system administrator, such configurable values should not be
>     placed directly in the script. Instead, they should be placed in a
> >>  file in /etc/default, which typically will have the same base name
>     as the init.d script. This extra file should be sourced by the
>     script when the script runs.
> 
> What does /etc/defaults mean under Cygwin? This should be documented
> in the package contributors guide as well.

I think debian is on firmer ground than cygwin in putting files in
/etc/defaults since they are sourced extensions of the real
configuration files.