On Sun, 2 Aug 2015 16:29:06 +0200, Marcin Haba wrote: > >> A) if a shell script can be treated as configuration file? > > > > Certainly. It's a cheap way to set a program's runtime configuration > > instead of implementing a full config file loader/parser. > > My image of configuration files is that they are files for read/write > purpose by design, because they enables _configure_ something > (application, service, single program, script...whatever). If they are > dedicated only for reading then from my point of view they lose > "configuration" meaning (something like WORM storage ;-) ). Why would you say that? There are read-only config files to set the system-wide default for everyone. The program reads them first before looking for user's local config files to override the defaults. The program would never write the system-wide file file in /etc, but at most the user's local file. And in general, whether a program can write its own config files is purely a question of design. Clearly, over the years there have been programs that only read config files somebody [or some tool] can create. /etc/bashrc, /etc/profile are examples of %config files where the file format is shell language code to be interpreted by a shell. > >> B) does in rpmlint aspect non-executable mean 'without execute > >> permissions' or 'non-executable at all' (directly and by any interpreter) ? > > > > It refers to the exec permission bit. Executables files in /etc being > > marked as %config would be another mistake. > > If rpmlint refers 'non-executable' only to the exec permission, what I > believe takes place, and the contents of the file that matter for > determine 'executable/non-executable' type, it means that rpmlint search > 'executable' property not there where it should search. > > Partially I understand this searching for executable files because it > might be difficult clearly qualify some file to some specific type of > files basing on a file content or just interpreter definition. > > However I believe that exist some tools or libraries that can do this > content analyze for rpmlint. What would be the benefit? rpmlint cannot get it 100% right anyway. There could be corner-cases, where a config file gets executed instead of being "sourced" like a shell include file. > > It's some sort of white-list to assume that files in /etc meant to be > > executed (such as initscripts related files) are not configuration > > files in any way. Admin may decide to edit such executables nevertheless > > (for reasons unknown), but the next update would overwrite the changes. > > Good to know that mentioned white-list exists. Could you indicate me > where can I find this white-list? With "some sort of white-list" I mean the simplification -- the simplified assumption -- that files with execute permission are believed to be executables and not configuration files. And vice versa. Real configuration files being marked executable are believed to be mistakes. -- devel mailing list devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct
