On 19/11/2007, Al Hopper <al at logical-approach.com> wrote: > On Mon, 19 Nov 2007, Bart Smaalders wrote: > > > Moritz Willers wrote: > >> Now I know this is unlikely to happen, but I would like to throw this in > >> for consideration on whatever is being worked on: > >> > >> We have written a lot of packages that consist mainly of postinstall > >> scripts, i.e. not delivering any functionality, but merely adding to the > >> configuration of the system. Those packages caused us much grief as we > >> tried to adopt zones, cause us grief during upgrades of our systems > >> (where we tend to replace our in-house developed packages, but need to > >> skip those that do system configuration work), cause us grief as we are > >> looking at other provisioning systems... > >> > >> If here was a sysidcfg API we wouldn't have to do system configuration > >> through postinstall scripts in packages. > >> > >> Whilst I title this and mention a "sysidcfg API", I doubt that will ever > >> come to fruition. It merely is a plea to consider other system > >> configuration, but those provided by the OS install mechanism, and open > >> any future technologies so we as a user can hook into it. > >> > >> - mo (kind of hoping that this mail can be answered with a RTFM link to > >> the Caiman documentation:)) > >> > > > > The IPS (Image Packaging System) project is working on a > > generic solution to the "run this at first restart" after > > service startup. This should be a much mor erobust solution > > to your problem, and provides a known context for execution. > > <semi-rant> One of the frustrations of working with sysidcfg is that > there are no tools to allow you to scan/error-check a sysidcfg data > file. Even silly tools that'll identify simple typos in the keywords. > Instead, you are left to test/trouble-shoot by trial and error. And > this is time consuming and aggravating. It also does not help that > the available documentation spans Sol 8, 9, 10 and NV and you can > never tell if: > > - there's an error in the doc(s) > - docs are out-of-date or your doc revision != binary revision > - newer versions of the binaries that parse the sysidcfg have been > released and you have not seen the accompying documenatation > - newer versions of the binaries that parse the sysidcfg have bugs > > Using "the Google" also adds its fair share of confusion - even with > silly things like how the file should be formatted; with some people > saying "always indent with a tab", "always use spaces", always start > on a new-line; blah, blah, blah. > > When a sysidcfg error does occur, sometimes you see an error message > flash momently on the screen just long enough for you to see it, but > not long enough for you to grok it! IOW - errors are not logged. > And most of the time, you don't see any error indications - but you > have to plod through the mind-numbing task of entering information via > the sys config dialogs - which serves to indicate some unknown failure > mode. </semi-rant> > > Ignore my rant - it's a minor frustration on the overall scale of life > - but please consider addressing these frustrations in the new > installer. > > <mini-rant> > An additional source of frustration is a silly bug or feature omission > that continues, unresolved for year after *year*. > </mini-rant> > > I'm really hopefull that open-sourcing the new installer will allow > frustrated end-users to fix their own annoying bugs - many of which > are probably quite easy to fix - but never reach high enough priority > to divert the attention of highly talented kernel level developers. > > PS: Any word on when the installer will be opened up?
Thursday Nov 15, 2007: http://blogs.sun.com/dminer/entry/install_source_release2 -- Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ "We don't have enough parallel universes to allow all uses of all junction types--in the absence of quantum computing the combinatorics are not in our favor..." --Larry Wall
