Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 09:46:29AM +0200, Aaron Sowry wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:25:53PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote: Yes, but the difference here is that ls does not re-implement something that is already available at the command line. Hmm??? The formatting done by ls is not already available to the user as a command that can be piped to. ls | column rpm -qf `which column` util-linux-2.19.1-1.fc16.x86_64 D. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 08:25:53AM +0200, David Tardon wrote: The formatting done by ls is not already available to the user as a command that can be piped to. ls | column Doesn't give me the same output as ls. ls is a poor anaolgue for systemctl in this respect anyway so we can probably stop comparing the two. /Aaron signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 03:49:12PM -0400, Rich Mattes wrote: The best place to discuss bugs and design decisions for a project is on that project's mailing list[1]. fedora-devel is the correct forum if there are Fedora related integration issues, but whether or not systemd pages output by default is more of a project level issue. Fair point - discussion has been moved to [1]. /Aaron [1] http://lists.freedesktop.org/pipermail/systemd-devel/2011-June/002655.html signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On 06/17/2011 10:16 PM, Aaron Sowry wrote: Hello, I'd like to discuss the behaviour of systemctl. See RH bug 713567 for context. To summarise: - 'systemctl --all' pages by default when the output is to tty. This consumes 50-60+ lines of potentially bug-prone code, and irks the crap out of me as a system administrator. systemctl's jurisdiction ends at stdout. - The same command outputs column headers on tty, and no headers otherwise. This is inconsistent. If I am outputting to a file, or perhaps a printer, and want headers on my non-tty output, I have to add them myself since there is no flag to force them on non-tty channels. If I don't want them and they are present, I tail. - Currently, if I run 'systemctl --all' and have no pager (at least no pager that systemctl knows of) available, I get an error message and no output. This is horribly bad form, and forces me to use --no-pager or pipe to cat in order to get output. This issue is acknowledged in RH bug 713707. - Another bright idea (RH bug 713567) is that --full should be applied to non-tty output automatically, and not to tty output. All of these peculiarities stem from poor UNIX programming practise. Do not try to make decisions for me as a user (especially not based on output channels), about how I want my output formatted. No other Linux/UNIX tools make this assumption (with perhaps the exception of git-log et. al.), and if you are wanting administrators to feel comfortable with your new soon-to-be-ubiquitous tools, then I suggest you try to be consistent with existing convention. I don't want to have to check man pages to see if piping output gives me different results than tty, and I would rather use existing, well-proven tools to format my output than a bunch of flags I have to re-learn just to be able to deal with systemctl. The type of people using systemctl are not the type of people that are going to need hand-holding. Thanks. I'll add one (small) inconsistency: # systemctl is-active service has following output: active and sets exit code. If you don't wont any output, you need to use --quiet # systemctl is-enabled service just sets exit code. I'd prefer if the behaviour of is-active and is-enabled is the same: simple output and --quiet option. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On 06/19/2011 10:25 PM, Matthew Garrett wrote: On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 07:09:14PM -0400, Steve Clark wrote: Aaron, haven't you figured it out yet? As far as Lennart is concerned it is his way or the highway! My $.02 after following all the threads about sysemd/ctl. Steve, This is a technical mailing list and this kind of response is unproductive. If you have significant technical issues with the design of systemd then take them up in the appropriate way. Belittling contributors because of perceived notions of their behaviour is inappropriate. (For what it's worth, I've never had any trouble getting a useful response from Lennart when I've raised a technical issue with him) That is the issue. In every discussion I have seen Lennart and all his supporters say well if you don't like it use something else. Show me on example where it has been otherwise in the last month on this mailing list. -- Stephen Clark *NetWolves* Sr. Software Engineer III Phone: 813-579-3200 Fax: 813-882-0209 Email: steve.cl...@netwolves.com http://www.netwolves.com -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, 19.06.11 19:09, Steve Clark (scl...@netwolves.com) wrote: Aaron, haven't you figured it out yet? As far as Lennart is concerned it is his way or the highway! My $.02 after following all the threads about sysemd/ctl. This is such a useless comment. In this thread alone I accepted two suggestions and added them to the TODO list, and there are now even patches for both of them, and we'll merge them. You know, we are very open for suggestions and we *listen*. That doesn't mean we do everything people demand from us. We will always have to reject a few things people suggest, for various reasons. You need to understand that you are not the only user of systemd. That means we will not implement everything you ask us to. But just because we said no to one or more of your suggestions doesn't mean it's our way or the highway. It's folks like you who really make me wonder why I still bother with fedora-devel. If fools like you don't get what they want they automatically assume that nobody gets what what they want. But that's just bogus and stupid. Everybody else, please ignore Steve, and continue to constructively make suggestions what we can improve in systemd, because that's appreciated. And don't be disappointed if we'll not say Yes to everything suggested. Steve, grow up! Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Mon, 20.06.11 06:50, Steve Clark (scl...@netwolves.com) wrote: That is the issue. In every discussion I have seen Lennart and all his supporters say well if you don't like it use something else. Show me on example where it has been otherwise in the last month on this mailing list. You are quite offensive. In this very thread here are at least two mails where I offered to make changes requested on fedora-devel: http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-June/13024.html (SYSTEMD_PAGER) http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-June/153022.html (support for systems with no pager installed) (and for both these issues we now have patches even, shortly to be merged. How awesome!) But anyway, I presume that arguing with you on this is a pointless excercise, so I'll just take some time off fedora-devel again, and leave you to your FUD party. Enjoy! Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Mon, 20.06.11 11:12, Michal Hlavinka (mhlav...@redhat.com) wrote: I'll add one (small) inconsistency: # systemctl is-active service has following output: active and sets exit code. If you don't wont any output, you need to use --quiet # systemctl is-enabled service just sets exit code. I'd prefer if the behaviour of is-active and is-enabled is the same: simple output and --quiet option. I added this to the todo list now. Though I do wonder if we change this now if people will complain... ;-) Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
Sam Varshavchik (mr...@courier-mta.com) said: * Make chkconfig know about systemd, so if it gets an on or off for a service, it executes systemctl enable/disable instead. It already does this. Bill -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
Bill Nottingham writes: Sam Varshavchik (mr...@courier-mta.com) said: * Make chkconfig know about systemd, so if it gets an on or off for a service, it executes systemctl enable/disable instead. It already does this. Strange. If I pass the service name in the --initscript argument to alternatives, I get some kind of a whine: # /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/sbin/sendmail mta /usr/lib/courier/bin/sendmail 91 \ --slave /usr/bin/mailq mta-mailq /usr/lib/courier/bin/mailq \ --slave /usr/bin/rmail mta-rmail /usr/lib/courier/bin/rmail \ --slave /usr/bin/newaliases mta-newaliases \ /usr/lib/courier/sbin/makealiases \ --initscript courier error reading information on service courier: No such file or directory Yet, chkconfig courier on works, so the breakage is between alternatives and chkconfig. pgpQ41Mjmapsb.pgp Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
Sam Varshavchik (mr...@courier-mta.com) said: Sam Varshavchik (mr...@courier-mta.com) said: * Make chkconfig know about systemd, so if it gets an on or off for a service, it executes systemctl enable/disable instead. It already does this. Strange. If I pass the service name in the --initscript argument to alternatives, I get some kind of a whine: # /usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/sbin/sendmail mta /usr/lib/courier/bin/sendmail 91 \ --slave /usr/bin/mailq mta-mailq /usr/lib/courier/bin/mailq \ --slave /usr/bin/rmail mta-rmail /usr/lib/courier/bin/rmail \ --slave /usr/bin/newaliases mta-newaliases \ /usr/lib/courier/sbin/makealiases \ --initscript courier error reading information on service courier: No such file or directory Yet, chkconfig courier on works, so the breakage is between alternatives and chkconfig. Please file this - thanks! Bill -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:25:53PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote: Yes, but the difference here is that ls does not re-implement something that is already available at the command line. Hmm??? The formatting done by ls is not already available to the user as a command that can be piped to. And how does that matter for Fedora? It doesn't I guess, but are you writing systemd for Fedora, or as a general replacement for SysV init? But what's the point of discussing this on fedora-devel then? Because this seems to be the place where systemd is being developed, tested, implemented and discussed. If there are other more appropriate channels, please let me know what they are. Yes, absolutely. systemd depends on util-linux for the gettys, for fsck, for mount, for umount, for swapoff, for swapon -- all these commands are more than just wrappers around kernel functionality and are pretty much the Linux API for the respective functionality. Sure, but as far as I can tell, util-linux is not in the dependency list. The README of systemd lists it pretty explicitly including a version number. Alright, I missed that. signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:46:48AM +0200, Aaron Sowry wrote: On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 04:31:08PM -0700, Jesse Keating wrote: The apps that I've seen where they do something special like paging the output by default, will not do that if the output is a non-active tty, such as a pipe. When you pipe it into something it'll react differently. Yes, and this is exactly the problem. When I run 'systemctl --all' on the tty, I get paging and column headers. When I pipe into something, I get no paging and no column headers. Your point about column headers is taken (explicitly, in my mail) and bears no more repeating since there's a bug about it. Your point about paging continues to be that you don't like it for the purist reason that unix-y tools shouldn't format their output. Or format it too much, since many tools do do formatting already. grep and git already do something too impure for you and have been doing so for a long time. I'm happy this is the default. If you're not, why not file a bug? It's more effective than complaining on a downstream mailing list. /Aaron Martin pgpNW91wh3QFL.pgp Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 09:46:29AM +0200, Aaron Sowry wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 10:25:53PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote: Yes, but the difference here is that ls does not re-implement something that is already available at the command line. Hmm??? The formatting done by ls is not already available to the user as a command that can be piped to. Of course the formatting done is (already available to the user). With sed, awk, cut, join, sh, etc. lots of formatting logic is already technically available. It's just nobody wants to have to construct crazy pipe commands all the time and tradeoffs and defaults have been chosen. Martin pgp4aEzvzcrD8.pgp Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 10:03:05AM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: Your point about column headers is taken (explicitly, in my mail) and bears no more repeating since there's a bug about it. I didn't realise there was a bug for this, which is it? Your point about paging continues to be that you don't like it for the purist reason that unix-y tools shouldn't format their output. This is not just purism for purism's sake, I think the point is being lost here somewhere. To clarify, coding applications in this way results in: - Additional code to deal with output logic in different situations, which like all code, is potentially buggy. This is especially true when there is distribution-specific logic in the code. - Additional flags and corresponding documentation to modify behaviour which has been imposed on you by the author (--no-pager, adding/removing column headers, enabling/disabling --full output) - Output format from a command being non-obvious unless you are intimately familiar with the specific output logic of the command. - Additional dependencies and potential non-portability to other systems which may not satisfy these dependencies. - Increased learning curve, since behaviour differs from most other commonly used applications. The list goes on. If you want to call it purism then fine, just don't pretend there are no valid reasons for it. I'm happy this is the default. If you're not, why not file a bug? It's more effective than complaining on a downstream mailing list. I already did, bug 713567. It was CLOSED WONTFIX within 45 minutes. /Aaron signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 10:11:15AM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: The formatting done by ls is not already available to the user as a command that can be piped to. Of course the formatting done is (already available to the user). With sed, awk, cut, join, sh, etc. lots of formatting logic is already technically available. It's just nobody wants to have to construct crazy pipe commands all the time and tradeoffs and defaults have been chosen. If ls forked a bunch of forked processes internally in order to provide the formatted output, then yes, I would have the same problem with it as I do with systemctl. If you can justify re-implementing a formatting algorithm in the program itself, then it's probably too difficult to achieve at the commandline. If you can't justify writing the code to do this, then it's easy enough to do at the commandline. /Aaron signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 12:54:38PM +0200, Aaron Sowry wrote: On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 10:03:05AM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: Your point about column headers is taken (explicitly, in my mail) and bears no more repeating since there's a bug about it. I didn't realise there was a bug for this, which is it? You alluded to RH #713567 in [1], so I assumed that bug had this point in it. Re-reading it, it does. Your point about paging continues to be that you don't like it for the purist reason that unix-y tools shouldn't format their output. This is not just purism for purism's sake. You said tools paging their tty-destined output irked the crap[1] out of you and didn't otherwise disagree that other tools do this (and other things) based on tty-ness. I'm not sure I was wrong to read that as a purist's lament given the additional code is trivial in length. I think the point is being lost here somewhere. [original paging-takes-code point] [new points objecting to paging] The original point and new points you just applied to the irkesome behaviour are simply not compelling: that 50+ lines of pager-related C is somehow a fearsome vector for terrible bugs and must be excised or that the year-old chosen defaults for a new command can be changed with flags somehow impose a crippling learning curve. Especially, given (like I said) the precedents and utility of the defaults (which you didn't argue with[2]). /Aaron Martin 1. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-June/152993.html 2. You said[3] you disputed the utility of paging-by-default, which is the behaviour I praised, and that I missed your dispute as to its utility in [1], but, no, actually, you gave no reasons why it wasn't useful in [1]. You just said it irked you, had a real danger of scary bugs, and had a bug when no pager was present, none of which are arguments for uselessness. 3. http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-June/152997.html pgpBuY6zkL02M.pgp Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 06:43:46PM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 12:54:38PM +0200, Aaron Sowry wrote: On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 10:03:05AM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: Your point about column headers is taken (explicitly, in my mail) and bears no more repeating since there's a bug about it. I didn't realise there was a bug for this, which is it? You alluded to RH #713567 in [1], so I assumed that bug had this point in it. Re-reading it, it does. That bug has been closed. Your point about paging continues to be that you don't like it for the purist reason that unix-y tools shouldn't format their output. This is not just purism for purism's sake. You said tools paging their tty-destined output irked the crap[1] out of you and didn't otherwise disagree that other tools do this (and other things) based on tty-ness. I'm not sure I was wrong to read that as a purist's lament given the additional code is trivial in length. This is not a deposition, and I'm not here to discuss semantics. Whatever you took irked the crap to mean, the intended meaning was that it bothers me as a symptom of poor programming convention. I think the point is being lost here somewhere. [original paging-takes-code point] [new points objecting to paging] The original point and new points you just applied to the irkesome behaviour are simply not compelling: Matter of opinion. that 50+ lines of pager-related C is somehow a fearsome vector for terrible bugs and must be excised A blatant exaggeration of what was actually said. If, however, you really feel that you require concrete examples, earlier in the thread it was pointed out by Lennart that Implicit --full when using a pager has been the default since quite some time in systemd. I'm assuming he meant when not using tty, but whether that's a typo or not, I'm not seeing this behaviour in F15 in either the tty or non-tty case anyway. Assuming this is a bug and not just a misunderstanding, then this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say that extra logic to try and be clever *is* indeed a vector for annoying bugs. or that the year-old chosen defaults for a new command can be changed with flags somehow impose a crippling learning curve. Especially, given (like I said) the precedents and utility of the defaults (which you didn't argue with[2]). Again, an exaggeration, but with a thread of truth to it. alias systemctl=systemctl --no-pager has been suggested as an acceptable solution to disable paged output, except then if I pipe through less, as per every other command I use, I lose column headers. Do I need to add --force-headers or something to my alias too? Possibly not crippling, but learning to have to do this to get sensible output is certainly a learning curve. 2. You said[3] you disputed the utility of paging-by-default, which is the behaviour I praised, and that I missed your dispute as to its utility in [1], but, no, actually, you gave no reasons why it wasn't useful in [1]. You just said it irked you, had a real danger of scary bugs, and had a bug when no pager was present, none of which are arguments for uselessness. If I haven't made the disputes clear enough for you by now, then I'm afraid I'm not sure what else I can say. Uselessness it probably not the point here though, the point is all of the other downsides associated with such an implementation. Paging is certainly useful, however |less is not a difficult thing to type. /Aaron signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
Am 19.06.2011 20:48, schrieb Aaron Sowry: If I haven't made the disputes clear enough for you by now, then I'm afraid I'm not sure what else I can say. Uselessness it probably not the point here though, the point is all of the other downsides associated with such an implementation. Paging is certainly useful, however |less is not a difficult thing to type. i agree with you! the point is not (only) if |less is easy to type * one will use less, the other one more, the third his own pager * pagers are existing * everybody knows them the unix-way IS NOT to include such things directly in any application nobody needs autopaging and the 3 peopole who needs can set an alias but to need an alias for all the other? most peopole today are working on a Desktop with a terminal like konsole or whatelese which understands scrolling - pafing is a uasbility crime as default here since my mouse-wheel let me better position where i want signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On 06/19/2011 03:46 AM, Aaron Sowry wrote: And how does that matter for Fedora? It doesn't I guess, but are you writing systemd for Fedora, or as a general replacement for SysV init? But what's the point of discussing this on fedora-devel then? Because this seems to be the place where systemd is being developed, tested, implemented and discussed. If there are other more appropriate channels, please let me know what they are. The best place to discuss bugs and design decisions for a project is on that project's mailing list[1]. fedora-devel is the correct forum if there are Fedora related integration issues, but whether or not systemd pages output by default is more of a project level issue. Rich [1] http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On 06/19/2011 06:54 AM, Aaron Sowry wrote: On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 10:03:05AM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: Your point about column headers is taken (explicitly, in my mail) and bears no more repeating since there's a bug about it. I didn't realise there was a bug for this, which is it? Your point about paging continues to be that you don't like it for the purist reason that unix-y tools shouldn't format their output. This is not just purism for purism's sake, I think the point is being lost here somewhere. To clarify, coding applications in this way results in: - Additional code to deal with output logic in different situations, which like all code, is potentially buggy. This is especially true when there is distribution-specific logic in the code. - Additional flags and corresponding documentation to modify behaviour which has been imposed on you by the author (--no-pager, adding/removing column headers, enabling/disabling --full output) - Output format from a command being non-obvious unless you are intimately familiar with the specific output logic of the command. - Additional dependencies and potential non-portability to other systems which may not satisfy these dependencies. - Increased learning curve, since behaviour differs from most other commonly used applications. The list goes on. If you want to call it purism then fine, just don't pretend there are no valid reasons for it. I'm happy this is the default. If you're not, why not file a bug? It's more effective than complaining on a downstream mailing list. I already did, bug 713567. It was CLOSED WONTFIX within 45 minutes. /Aaron Aaron, haven't you figured it out yet? As far as Lennart is concerned it is his way or the highway! My $.02 after following all the threads about sysemd/ctl. -- Stephen Clark *NetWolves* Sr. Software Engineer III Phone: 813-579-3200 Fax: 813-882-0209 Email: steve.cl...@netwolves.com http://www.netwolves.com -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On 06/20/2011 04:39 AM, Steve Clark wrote: Aaron, haven't you figured it out yet? As far as Lennart is concerned it is his way or the highway! My $.02 after following all the threads about sysemd/ctl. This is not a constructive way to participate. There is valid room for disagreement but please stick to technical discussions only and avoid personal attacks. Rahul -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 07:09:14PM -0400, Steve Clark wrote: Aaron, haven't you figured it out yet? As far as Lennart is concerned it is his way or the highway! My $.02 after following all the threads about sysemd/ctl. Steve, This is a technical mailing list and this kind of response is unproductive. If you have significant technical issues with the design of systemd then take them up in the appropriate way. Belittling contributors because of perceived notions of their behaviour is inappropriate. (For what it's worth, I've never had any trouble getting a useful response from Lennart when I've raised a technical issue with him) -- Matthew Garrett | mj...@srcf.ucam.org -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Lennart Poettering mzerq...@0pointer.de wrote: You know, I'd prefer if you take up your beef with ls first. Have you ever compared the output of ls and of ls | cat? And that's just the most obvious case. Indeed, ls, grep, git and many many modern cli tools use this convention. ls and grep have done it for ages, and we're all happier for that. As many others, I am learning systemd and I have my moments of doubt, confusion, and argh, too much change under my feet. But the output formatting on a tty?! Let's have interesting discussion of systemd -- lots of things that were familiar are now new and strange. But keep overreactions in check, and the discussion technical and productive. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
Martin Langhoff writes: Let's have interesting discussion of systemd -- lots of things that were familiar are now new and strange. But keep overreactions in check, and the discussion technical and productive. Here's something I just stumbled upon. alternatives has a parameter --initscript that ties in alternatives with an initscript. Switching between alternative services results in alternatives running chkconfig on/off automatically. There does not appear to be an analogue for systemd. I think that one of three things needs to be done: * Have alternatives run systemctl enable/disable, for systemd-based services, or * Make chkconfig know about systemd, so if it gets an on or off for a service, it executes systemctl enable/disable instead. * The third solution is even more interesting. Instead of alternatives enabling or disabling services, directly or indirectly, have systemd run alternatives itself. systemctl enable or disable maps directly into alternatives --install and --remove. pgpkOyst2EoRF.pgp Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 04:31:08PM -0700, Jesse Keating wrote: The apps that I've seen where they do something special like paging the output by default, will not do that if the output is a non-active tty, such as a pipe. When you pipe it into something it'll react differently. Yes, and this is exactly the problem. When I run 'systemctl --all' on the tty, I get paging and column headers. When I pipe into something, I get no paging and no column headers. The assumption here is apparently that if the output is not going to tty then it is not destined for human eyes, which is an absolutely ridiculous assumption to make. If I output to a file so I can look at things later, I get no headers, and have no option to force them on non-tty output. This alone may seem fairly trivial, but the problem is that there are many of these trivialities, all of which seem to stem from authors who either don't understand UNIX programming, or are actively choosing to ignore convention. Seriously, if anybody suggests that the solution to the above problem is to add a '--force-headers' flag, I think I'm going to start using Windows. We need to start having this discussion before more of this stupid behaviour starts finding its way into other core components of Fedora. /Aaron signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On 06/18/2011 01:06 AM, Aaron Sowry wrote: n Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:41:14PM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: As you point out, git-log and --help do this too. It's excellent. Make it configurable if you must, but I'd be interested to think why you think it's not always the useful thing to do. The reasons why it's not the useful thing to do were pointed out in my previous email. I don't appreciate the default paging behavior at all either, but at least git gives me an easy global way to get rid of it: export GIT_PAGER=cat in ~/.bash_profile. systemctl does not seem to offer anything comparable (remembering to type --no-pager or setting $PAGER which affects other things do not count), or did I miss something? -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Fri, 17.06.11 22:16, Aaron Sowry (aaron...@aeneby.se) wrote: Hello, Heya, I'd like to discuss the behaviour of systemctl. See RH bug 713567 for context. To summarise: - 'systemctl --all' pages by default when the output is to tty. This consumes 50-60+ lines of potentially bug-prone code, and irks the crap out of me as a system administrator. systemctl's jurisdiction ends at stdout. Well, I think in genreal the autopaging behaviour of git and other tools is very much appreciated. If you hate that behaviour then you are probably in the minority, and we have to agree to disagree on the benefits of this behaviour. Setting alias systemctl='systemctl --no-pager' is not particularly hard though. - The same command outputs column headers on tty, and no headers otherwise. This is inconsistent. If I am outputting to a file, or perhaps a printer, and want headers on my non-tty output, I have to add them myself since there is no flag to force them on non-tty channels. If I don't want them and they are present, I tail. I am pretty sure that if you ask us nicely, we'll add an option to enable headers nonetheless. It's however usually simpler if you pipe something not to have to use tail/head. - Currently, if I run 'systemctl --all' and have no pager (at least no pager that systemctl knows of) available, I get an error message and no output. This is horribly bad form, and forces me to use --no-pager or pipe to cat in order to get output. This issue is acknowledged in RH bug 713707. We generally do not support if people delete arbitrary things from their installation. /bin/more is part of util-linux, and if you delete that then you broke your system, so don't complain to us please. I am not saying we shouldn't make it possible to run without any pager installed. But does this matter? No, not at all. It doesn't have priority in any way. It's probably one of those cases where supplying us with a clean, minimal patch is the most compelling argument to make your point. Complaining on mailing lists not so much. - Another bright idea (RH bug 713567) is that --full should be applied to non-tty output automatically, and not to tty output. Yes, it actually makes sense and has been requested which is why we implemented it. All of these peculiarities stem from poor UNIX programming practise. I think all of these peculiarities stem from actually accepting progress. No other Linux/UNIX tools make this assumption (with perhaps the exception of git-log et. al.), and if you are wanting administrators to feel comfortable with your new soon-to-be-ubiquitous tools, then I suggest you try to be consistent with existing convention. I think you are mixing up administrators with Aaron Sowry. Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, 18.06.11 10:46, Aaron Sowry (aaron...@aeneby.se) wrote: On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 04:31:08PM -0700, Jesse Keating wrote: The apps that I've seen where they do something special like paging the output by default, will not do that if the output is a non-active tty, such as a pipe. When you pipe it into something it'll react differently. Yes, and this is exactly the problem. When I run 'systemctl --all' on the tty, I get paging and column headers. When I pipe into something, I get no paging and no column headers. The assumption here is apparently that if the output is not going to tty then it is not destined for human eyes, which is an absolutely ridiculous assumption to make. If I output to a file so I can look at things later, I get no headers, and have no option to force them on non-tty output. This alone may seem fairly trivial, but the problem is that there are many of these trivialities, all of which seem to stem from authors who either don't understand UNIX programming, or are actively choosing to ignore convention. Seriously, if anybody suggests that the solution to the above problem is to add a '--force-headers' flag, I think I'm going to start using Windows. We need to start having this discussion before more of this stupid behaviour starts finding its way into other core components of Fedora. Supposedly non-UNIXy behaviour on Linux causes you to switch to Windows? Yeah, that makes sense! Awesome logic! Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, 18.06.11 13:02, Ville Skyttä (ville.sky...@iki.fi) wrote: On 06/18/2011 01:06 AM, Aaron Sowry wrote: n Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:41:14PM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: As you point out, git-log and --help do this too. It's excellent. Make it configurable if you must, but I'd be interested to think why you think it's not always the useful thing to do. The reasons why it's not the useful thing to do were pointed out in my previous email. I don't appreciate the default paging behavior at all either, but at least git gives me an easy global way to get rid of it: export GIT_PAGER=cat in ~/.bash_profile. systemctl does not seem to offer anything comparable (remembering to type --no-pager or setting $PAGER which affects other things do not count), or did I miss something? Ask us nicely and we'll add SYSTEMD_PAGER for you, taking precedence over PAGER. Even more convincing might be prepping a patch for this. Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 1:55 PM, Lennart Poettering mzerq...@0pointer.de wrote: I'd like to discuss the behaviour of systemctl. See RH bug 713567 for context. To summarise: - 'systemctl --all' pages by default when the output is to tty. This consumes 50-60+ lines of potentially bug-prone code, and irks the crap out of me as a system administrator. systemctl's jurisdiction ends at stdout. Well, I think in genreal the autopaging behaviour of git and other tools is very much appreciated. If you hate that behaviour then you are probably in the minority, and we have to agree to disagree on the benefits of this behaviour. While much of The UNIX way is folklore, some conventions for the (GNU/)Linux platform actually exist and have been explicitly documented, and they haven't disappeared only because git happens to ignore some of them. (info standards 'Program behavior' 'User Interfaces') Mirek -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On 06/18/2011 03:02 PM, Lennart Poettering wrote: Ask us nicely and we'll add SYSTEMD_PAGER for you, taking precedence over PAGER. Even more convincing might be prepping a patch for this. https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38439 -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 01:55:43PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote: - 'systemctl --all' pages by default when the output is to tty. This consumes 50-60+ lines of potentially bug-prone code, and irks the crap out of me as a system administrator. systemctl's jurisdiction ends at stdout. Well, I think in genreal the autopaging behaviour of git and other tools is very much appreciated. If you hate that behaviour then you are probably in the minority, and we have to agree to disagree on the benefits of this behaviour. Setting alias systemctl='systemctl --no-pager' is not particularly hard though. Setting aliases does not remove cruft code, or documentation for flags which don't need to exist. Flags should be used to enable functionality, not disable bloat. - The same command outputs column headers on tty, and no headers otherwise. This is inconsistent. If I am outputting to a file, or perhaps a printer, and want headers on my non-tty output, I have to add them myself since there is no flag to force them on non-tty channels. If I don't want them and they are present, I tail. I am pretty sure that if you ask us nicely, we'll add an option to enable headers nonetheless. It's however usually simpler if you pipe something not to have to use tail/head. Yet another flag to work around inconsistent behaviour is the last thing systemctl needs. Simplicity is not the issue here - you are assuming that output piped to something other than a tty is not destined for human eyes. I shouldn't have to convince you that this is nonsense, and will only get worse if --full is applied automatically to all non-tty output. Shall we add a --no-full flag to work around this, too? - Currently, if I run 'systemctl --all' and have no pager (at least no pager that systemctl knows of) available, I get an error message and no output. This is horribly bad form, and forces me to use --no-pager or pipe to cat in order to get output. This issue is acknowledged in RH bug 713707. We generally do not support if people delete arbitrary things from their installation. /bin/more is part of util-linux, and if you delete that then you broke your system, so don't complain to us please. It is difficult to concieve where systemd might end up in future. Is util-linux a systemd dependency? I am not saying we shouldn't make it possible to run without any pager installed. But does this matter? No, not at all. It doesn't have priority in any way. It may not be a priority, but nor should it even be an issue. - Another bright idea (RH bug 713567) is that --full should be applied to non-tty output automatically, and not to tty output. Yes, it actually makes sense and has been requested which is why we implemented it. This is being implemented now? All of these peculiarities stem from poor UNIX programming practise. I think all of these peculiarities stem from actually accepting progress. Subjective opinion. No other Linux/UNIX tools make this assumption (with perhaps the exception of git-log et. al.), and if you are wanting administrators to feel comfortable with your new soon-to-be-ubiquitous tools, then I suggest you try to be consistent with existing convention. I think you are mixing up administrators with Aaron Sowry. Not really. All other administrators use exactly the same tools I do, very few of which behave like systemctl. Having to deal with command-specific behaviour only makes it more difficult to learn a new tool. /Aaron signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, 18.06.11 16:39, Aaron Sowry (aaron...@aeneby.se) wrote: - The same command outputs column headers on tty, and no headers otherwise. This is inconsistent. If I am outputting to a file, or perhaps a printer, and want headers on my non-tty output, I have to add them myself since there is no flag to force them on non-tty channels. If I don't want them and they are present, I tail. I am pretty sure that if you ask us nicely, we'll add an option to enable headers nonetheless. It's however usually simpler if you pipe something not to have to use tail/head. Yet another flag to work around inconsistent behaviour is the last thing systemctl needs. Simplicity is not the issue here - you are assuming that output piped to something other than a tty is not destined for human eyes. I shouldn't have to convince you that this is nonsense, and will only get worse if --full is applied automatically to all non-tty output. Shall we add a --no-full flag to work around this, too? You know, I'd prefer if you take up your beef with ls first. Have you ever compared the output of ls and of ls | cat? And that's just the most obvious case. Generating slightly different output on a tty than when used in another way is deeply rooted in Linux heritage. Autopaging is just a small step forward in that area. And a very welcome one. In this regard systemd is just following the evolution of Linux. We are not revolutionizing in this area, and we are not pioneering either. - Currently, if I run 'systemctl --all' and have no pager (at least no pager that systemctl knows of) available, I get an error message and no output. This is horribly bad form, and forces me to use --no-pager or pipe to cat in order to get output. This issue is acknowledged in RH bug 713707. We generally do not support if people delete arbitrary things from their installation. /bin/more is part of util-linux, and if you delete that then you broke your system, so don't complain to us please. It is difficult to concieve where systemd might end up in future. And how does that matter for Fedora? Is util-linux a systemd dependency? Yes, absolutely. systemd depends on util-linux for the gettys, for fsck, for mount, for umount, for swapoff, for swapon -- all these commands are more than just wrappers around kernel functionality and are pretty much the Linux API for the respective functionality. - Another bright idea (RH bug 713567) is that --full should be applied to non-tty output automatically, and not to tty output. Yes, it actually makes sense and has been requested which is why we implemented it. This is being implemented now? Hmm? Implicit --full when using a pager has been the default since quite some time in systemd. No other Linux/UNIX tools make this assumption (with perhaps the exception of git-log et. al.), and if you are wanting administrators to feel comfortable with your new soon-to-be-ubiquitous tools, then I suggest you try to be consistent with existing convention. I think you are mixing up administrators with Aaron Sowry. Not really. All other administrators use exactly the same tools I do, very few of which behave like systemctl. Having to deal with command-specific behaviour only makes it more difficult to learn a new tool. Yupp, as I see it it eases an administrator's life. I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this, and leave it at this. Sorry if that is disappointing. Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
Hi. On Sat, 18 Jun 2011 17:25:36 +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote another way is deeply rooted in Linux heritage. Autopaging is just a small step forward in that area. And a very welcome one. Do you have anything to back that claim up? -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 05:25:36PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote: You know, I'd prefer if you take up your beef with ls first. Have you ever compared the output of ls and of ls | cat? And that's just the most obvious case. Yes, but the difference here is that ls does not re-implement something that is already available at the command line. Generating slightly different output on a tty than when used in another way is deeply rooted in Linux heritage. Autopaging is just a small step forward in that area. Not sure I agree, but okay. And how does that matter for Fedora? It doesn't I guess, but are you writing systemd for Fedora, or as a general replacement for SysV init? Is util-linux a systemd dependency? Yes, absolutely. systemd depends on util-linux for the gettys, for fsck, for mount, for umount, for swapoff, for swapon -- all these commands are more than just wrappers around kernel functionality and are pretty much the Linux API for the respective functionality. Sure, but as far as I can tell, util-linux is not in the dependency list. Hmm? Implicit --full when using a pager has been the default since quite some time in systemd. Strange - I'm not seeing it in systemd-units-26-3.fc15.x86_64. Not really. All other administrators use exactly the same tools I do, very few of which behave like systemctl. Having to deal with command-specific behaviour only makes it more difficult to learn a new tool. Yupp, as I see it it eases an administrator's life. I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this, and leave it at this. Sorry if that is disappointing. It is disappointing. Specifics aside, my general point is that administrators don't need hand-holding and understand that there are pagers available for use outside of the program itself. Imposing behaviour on users only results in the problems I've pointed out previously - inconsistent output, inconsistent behaviour, additional code, additional dependencies, unnecessary flags, learning curve, non-portability, and so on ad nauseum. I'd love to see it change, I'd even submit a patch but I'm afraid it would fall on deaf ears. Thanks for taking the time to respond, anyway. /Aaron signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Sat, 18.06.11 21:52, Aaron Sowry (aaron...@aeneby.se) wrote: On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 05:25:36PM +0200, Lennart Poettering wrote: You know, I'd prefer if you take up your beef with ls first. Have you ever compared the output of ls and of ls | cat? And that's just the most obvious case. Yes, but the difference here is that ls does not re-implement something that is already available at the command line. Hmm??? And how does that matter for Fedora? It doesn't I guess, but are you writing systemd for Fedora, or as a general replacement for SysV init? But what's the point of discussing this on fedora-devel then? Yes, absolutely. systemd depends on util-linux for the gettys, for fsck, for mount, for umount, for swapoff, for swapon -- all these commands are more than just wrappers around kernel functionality and are pretty much the Linux API for the respective functionality. Sure, but as far as I can tell, util-linux is not in the dependency list. The README of systemd lists it pretty explicitly including a version number. Lennart -- Lennart Poettering - Red Hat, Inc. -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:16:35PM +0200, Aaron Sowry wrote: Hello, I'd like to discuss the behaviour of systemctl. See RH bug 713567 for context. To summarise: - 'systemctl --all' pages by default when the output is to tty. This consumes 50-60+ lines of potentially bug-prone code, and irks the crap out of me as a system administrator. systemctl's jurisdiction ends at stdout. As you point out, git-log and --help do this too. It's excellent. Make it configurable if you must, but I'd be interested to think why you think it's not always the useful thing to do. All of these peculiarities stem from poor UNIX programming practise. Do not try to make decisions for me as a user (especially not based on output channels), about how I want my output formatted. grep has had --color=auto for almost ten years[1]. No other Linux/UNIX tools make this assumption (with perhaps the exception of git-log et. al.) git and grep alone are a pretty significant set of tools, and I bet there are others. I agree with the rest of your objections about inconsistencies and mistaken error handling. But the ship has sailed on stdout-is-tty being an acceptable default driver of different output formatting. Martin 1. http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/grep/grep/src/grep.c?view=diffr1=1.69r2=1.70 pgp23YCGYSlNz.pgp Description: PGP signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
n Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 10:41:14PM +0100, Martin Dengler wrote: As you point out, git-log and --help do this too. It's excellent. Make it configurable if you must, but I'd be interested to think why you think it's not always the useful thing to do. The reasons why it's not the useful thing to do were pointed out in my previous email. grep has had --color=auto for almost ten years[1]. Indeed - so why not use it, instead of, at least in the case of git-log, '--decorate'? At least then I can use grep with every output which needs 'decorating'. But the ship has sailed on stdout-is-tty being an acceptable default driver of different output formatting. No ship has sailed anywhere, because there are plenty of places output can be sent en route to tty - 'watch' and 'egrep' are two examples. Also, tty is not the only place people want to send user-friendly input. What about files and printers? signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: The behaviour of systemctl.
On 6/17/11 3:06 PM, Aaron Sowry wrote: No ship has sailed anywhere, because there are plenty of places output can be sent en route to tty - 'watch' and 'egrep' are two examples. Also, tty is not the only place people want to send user-friendly input. What about files and printers? The apps that I've seen where they do something special like paging the output by default, will not do that if the output is a non-active tty, such as a pipe. When you pipe it into something it'll react differently. -- Jesse Keating RHCE (http://jkeating.livejournal.com) Fedora Project (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JesseKeating) GPG Public Key (geek.j2solutions.net/jkeating.j2solutions.pub) identi.ca (http://identi.ca/jkeating) -- devel mailing list devel@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
