Use of commands to change settings (was: fai.conf changes)

[Toomas Tamm]

Hello!

On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 08:41:54PM +0100, Thomas Lange wrote:
> FAI_CONFIG_SRC in fai.conf is not copied into the nfsroot any
> more. Use fai-chboot -u instead.

I would like to express my opinion against the shift of paradigm of
Unix administration, which has been growing in recent years, and now
also creeping into FAI. In the "old good days" configuration of a
Unix/Linux host was done by modifying files, usually under /etc . This
has the added benefit that such files can be easily reviewed, backed
up and later restored to a known working state, controlled with tools
such as Subversion/Git, cfengine, etc.

The more recent trend is a shift towards "user-friendly" tools, and
burying the configuration variables into opaque data or file
structures which are dangerous to modify without use of the
specialized tools. While I see the benefit of this technique for the
naive/first-time user, especially in configuring the visual aspects of
a GUI, I do not think such approach is appropriate in a highly
technical context such as FAI. Users of FAI should be expected to feel
comfortable in editing plain-text files with a text editor, and any
instructions should first and foremost outline how to achieve a
certain goal by editing text files, perhaps mentioning use of
specialized tools as an aid for the novices.

While I have not used FAI 4.1 yet, I would guess that the "fai-chboot
-u" probably adds the FAI_CONGIG_SRC variable to the appropriate
pxelinux configuration file - a modification that any moderately
qualified sysadmin could easily carry out by hand using a text editor.
So why not guide the original poster towards the specific file and
proper syntax, while mentioning in the passing that the same effect
could be achieved with "fai-chboot -u" as well?

Regards,

Toomas Tamm