[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Re: Suggest new: "update-rc.d <package> disable"

[Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña]

On Wed, Nov 09, 2005 at 10:35:06PM +0100, Peter Valdemar Mørch wrote:
> >>Otherwise, may I suggest that (at least the man page of)
> >>update-rc.d be enhanced to handle this?
> >
> >update-rc.d is an interface for maintainer scripts to use.  It wasn't
> >intended to be used by the administrator.
> 
> I'm sorry to hear this. Of course if that is the collective opinion of
> the list, I'll accept it and not comment further.
> 
> In my searches for a solution to this problem, I came
> across many mentions of update-rc.d, but never bum or sysv-rc-conf. bum
> I didn't even try out as it requires X (not good for remote work), and
> sysv-rc-conf doesn't give me any functionality I don't have with
> update-rc.d. And I still need to know beforehand that I need to insert

sysv-rc-conf does give you the functionality you want. If you want to disable
ssh in all runlevels, for example, just run:

         # sysv-rc-conf --level 2345 ssh off

That should change all 'S' links to 'K' links in all those runlevels.

> stop links in runlevels 2 through 5 to avoid having them re-added upon
> upgrade. And where is that documented? Nowhere I can find.

You can find it here:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/ch3.en.html#s-disableserv
or 
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-system.en.html#s-custombootscripts
> 
> The fact is that update-rc.d *is* being used by administrators, and it
> is installed on every debian system. I hope it is ok to add a couple of
> lines to the man page to avoid system administrators spending countless
> hours trying to figure this out. I suggest:

I do agree that 

a) the manpage should say that this interface has been designed for package
scripts, not for sysadminds

b) the manpage should provide an example on how to disable a service in a way
that works across upgrades

c) the manpage should point to GUIs oriented for sysadmis such as
sysv-rc-conf or bum

This is a common mistake and, at least, it should be properly documented in
the manpage to prevent this bug from reappearing every so often.

Regards

Javier
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