RE: RPM that modifies /etc/sysctl.conf

["Wichmann, Mats D" <mats d wichmann intel com>]

>Seems like a sane idea to me. You get revision control of your
>configuration, which is a good thing.
>
>You could do it as a patch, or write a pre-install handler script
>to make the changes for you...
>
>Joe Van Dyk wrote:
>> Say I want to add the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf 
>and do it via a RPM:
>> 
>> kernel.shmmax = 200000000
>> kernel.shmall = 20000000
>> 
>> Would my RPM just contain a patch?  Or would I not want to do this
>> kind of thing through an RPM?
>> 
>> Our software requires a bunch of changes to a linux box in order to
>> run (modified kernel, the above change, a new compiler, etc).  RPMs
>> are a sane way of pushing out the changes to the machines, right?


seems like people do things like this through a preinstall
script, usually [and no, the scriplets typically go inline in
the specfile, not in a separate source pkg].  also done for
appending to /etc/services and other such files.  what bugs me
about these schemes that usually consist of "cat >> somefile" 
is that there's no clean uninstall from that... at least 
conceptually it doesn't seem right that uninstalling any 
given rpm doesn't undo the damage it has done to the system...