Fedora Config -- Re: Standard configuration files

Hello Patrick,

First, sorry for the off-topic, but you didn't tell me which mailing list is the right one. I reviewed all of them and from the topic of the list: "This mailing list is for discussing configuration tool development." I thought it was the right one.

Second, I agree that the task of standarizing the way any software get's its configuration can be a huge task. The point I'm trying to make is the lack of guidelines, much less standards of configuring services from their configuration files. Wouldn't it be great if there was a tool developers could use to configure their programs using standard, human readable, easy to understand configuration files? Most services only need a plain, name=value type file so there's no reason why most of them are different.

Doing a quick review of the configuration files for very common services this is what we have:
Service       Type
Samba name=value with sections [].
Postfix name=value.
Apache    name value with sections <>.
Amd         name=value with sections [].
Dovecot name=value with sections {}, and subections.
Grub       name=value with sections name value.
Spamassassin name value.

But even for the same service MTA for example, the configuration is completely different from one another: sendmail, postfix, qmail.

You guess is right, I don't have "a whole lot of experience developing configuration systems in software applications", I would say I have some experience. Apart from being a web developer (mainly), I have experience in systems administration, specially *nix. Although I think this is not relevant.

The XML-DTD standard was created to be able to exchange ALL kinds of data, and it does it very well... except for non-structured binary data. I'm sure it can be used to describe most, if not all services' configuration.

The question I'd like to ask you, the experts, is: do you think it is worth? I think it is. At least there should be a guide, or recomendations on this.

Thanks again for your attention. Best regards,

Pedro.

Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:28:19 -0500
From: "Patrick W. Barnes" <nman64@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Standard configuration files
To: fedora-config-list@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Pedro Bezunartea L?pez <pedro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

On Thursday 08 June 2006 19:02, "Pedro Bezunartea López"
< pedro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I've been working with Linux for a few years now and one of the things I
> like most about it is the possibility of configuring everything by
> modifying readable text files. This is good but if you need to configure
> several services you may ask yoursel: why are all the configuration files
> for all the services so different? couldn't we come out with a standard
> file format that all services, devices, etc would use? What do you think?
> Here some ideas to begin with:
> 1. It'd have to be based in XML-dtd. Two important reasons, first it's a
> widely used standard, and second it's readable enough... and I can think of
> another one: it can describe very complex models.
> 2. There are already some services that use this kind of configuration
> files: tomcat... there's a place to start.
>
> Any suggestions are welcomed,
>

First, this thread is off-topic for this list:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PostIsOffTopic

I'm going to guess you don't have a whole lot of experience developing
configuration systems in software applications.  When developing an
application, a lot of consideration must go into the configuration system to
be used.  The developer will generally make a selection based upon their
needs, knowledge and available tools.  Sometimes, an XML solution might be
the wise choice, but there are also cases where nothing more than a flat-file
with "name=value" pairs is necessary, cases where a more powerful database is
needed, and cases where some other structured format or scripting language
might be needed.  The number of factors that must be considered is
astronomical.  Making a choice for the wrong reasons can have catastrophic
consequences.  There is no one right way, and there won't be in the
foreseeable future.

--
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64@xxxxxxxxx

http://www.n-man.com/

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