On Wed, 19 Aug 2026 04:33:58 +0000, David Holland writes: >On Tue, Aug 18, 2026 at 09:51:44AM -0400, Mouse wrote: > > > - the barrier scripts (e.g. LOGIN) > > > > > The barrier scripts are needed only for ordering, [...] > > > > If this really bothers someone, perhaps there could be a way for a > > script to declare itself a barrier script? Perhaps something a la > > make's .PHONY, perhaps a naming convention, perhaps something else. > >Is there any reason for the barrier scripts to physically exist?
Can they do their job otherwise? A possibly extreme example (perhaps only relevant as FreeBSD borrowed rc.subr et al from NetBSD), in Junos we have to run rcorder a few times during boot. The software is provided via packages which contain filesystem images which must be verified and mounted. An /etc/rc.d/* script does not exist until its package has been mounted. When the system first boots the kernel's rootfs mounts only a core runtime and libs packages, so only a small subset of /etc/rc.d/* can be considered when rcorder is first run. The barrier EARLY appears after the rc.d script which mounts the bulk of the core packages, so rcorder needs to be recomputed at that point. There are two other barriers LATE and LATER which also cause rcorder to need to be recomputed. Anyway; I favor leaving the barriers alone ;-)
