[Fedora-packaging] Requiring xinetd when placing files into /etc/xinetd.d

[Todd Zullinger]

A conversation¹ on fedora-list reminded me of something I found a while
back and never got around to asking about...

It seems that about half of the packages that place files in
/etc/xinetd.d require xinetd and half do not:

$ repoquery --qf '%{name}' --whatprovides '/etc/xinetd.d/*' | \
sort -u | while read p; do
    repoquery --requires $p | \
        grep -q xinet && echo "$p: YES" || echo "$p: NO"
done

amanda: YES
apg: NO
authd: YES
bitlbee: YES
cups-lpd: YES
cvs: NO
ebhttpd: NO
ebnetd: NO
finger-server: YES
git-daemon: NO
krb5-workstation-servers: YES
ldminfod: NO
leafnode: YES
libident-tools: NO
ltsp-server: NO
ndtpd: NO
node: YES
nuttcp: NO
proftpd: NO
pure-ftpd: NO
rsh-server: YES
rsync: NO
samba-swat: YES
talk-server: YES
telnet-server: YES
tftp-server: YES
uucp: NO
uw-imap: YES
vnc-ltsp-config: YES
vtun: YES
xinetd: YES

I am sure there are a few valid reasons a package might place files
into /etc/xinetd.d and not require xinetd, such as cvs or rsync, which
both provide plenty of functionality without xinetd.

A package like git-daemon on the other hand, which is a subpackage
specifically designed to provide an xinetd service, really ought to
require xinetd to give a good experience out of the box, correct?
While it is possible to setup an init script to run git-daemon²,
that's not how we ship it in the current packages. (I'm one of the git
co-maintainers, and I'm leaning toward adding an xinetd requirement,
unless I learn of good reasons not to do so.  I'm slightly torn
because adding an xinetd requirement may well annoy some folks that
prefer to setup an init script.)

I'm guessing that /etc/xinetd.d being provided by the filesystem
package is designed to allow for cases like cvs and rsync, but that
happened back in 2000, and the filesystem spec file doesn't leave any
bugzilla breadcrumbs to follow to see what other reasons there might
be for not requiring xinetd.

If anyone has pointers that might help illustrate other cases where
not requiring xinetd is the best course, I'd be glad to know about
them.  At the same time, if anyone is familiar with the packages in
the "NO" category above, giving a closer look to whether any of them
really should be requiring xinetd would probably be a good idea.

¹ http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2009-May/msg01664.html
² https://bugzilla.redhat.com/480755

-- 
Todd        OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance does whatever is dictated to it.
    -- Thomas Paine

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