[arch-projects] [initscripts][PATCH] arch-sysctl: suppress errors about unknown keys

lolilolicon lolilolicon at gmail.com
Tue Dec 13 15:44:33 EST 2011


On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 3:48 AM, Tom Gundersen <teg at jklm.no> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:09 PM, lolilolicon <lolilolicon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> According to sysctl(8), the -e option is used to "ignore errors about
>> unknown keys", so no "other error" would be hidden by it.
>
> Many reasons for "unknown keys", maybe the module is no longer
> installed (by mistake), or it failed loading, or, ....

But in case of those failures, one shouldn't expect to look for errors in
the sysctl error messages in the first place.  Those error messages should
be supplementary at best.

>
>> It's a good thing if we can report error on misspelled keys, but only if
>> we don't report the same errors when the keys are just unknown due to
>> disabled modules.
>
> I can't imagine how that could be done...
>
>> Currently I have IPv6 disabled, so I get in boot
>> messages:
>>
>>    error: "net.ipv6.conf.all.use_tempaddr" is an unknown key
>>    error: "net.ipv6.conf.default.use_tempaddr" is an unknown key
>
> To me it makes most sense to disable the sysctl entries if you disable
> the modules, anything else should give errors.

To me, the sysctl entries are to the modules what configuration files are
to e.g. daemons -- you don't comment/rename configs if you disable daemons
in rc.conf.

>
>> Now if I consistently get these errors, it would be very likely for me to
>> ignore some other real errors, like misspelling:
>>
>>    error: "net.ipv9.conf.default.use_tempaddr" is an unknown key
>
> With your patch this error would be ignored anyway...

Yes, but if in either case it will be ignored, better just not print it :P
My point is that if one gets used to the net.ipv6.* key errors, other real
errors would more likely be ignored; if instead, we suppress the
non-critical unknown key errors, the other real errors will stand out.

>
>> BTW, pre arch-sysctl, it used to be `sysctl -q -p &>/dev/null`, which
>> really hides *all* errors;
>
> Yeah, we are slowly moving away from ignoring errors wherever we can.

I can understand the intent.

>
>>  in contrast, The -e option sounds far more
>> reasonable...
>
> Sure, but it still risks ignoring some real errors, which is worse
> than being annoying.

I still think in reality -e is pretty safe; I wonder what the original
intent for the -e option.

Well, I think I've made my points.  Comparing options, I would add the -e
to my copy of arch-sysctl, if unfortunately we couldn't agree on this
matter.

Cheers


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