[plug] boot, kernel,

[James Devenish]

In message <6.0.0.22.0.20031130080654.01ad8058 at pop.ozemail.com.au>
on Sun, Nov 30, 2003 at 09:49:39AM +0800, smclevie wrote:
> How does one make a Sid Debian 2.4.22 kernel automatically set a fixed
> eth0 configuration?

Don't know about sid or iproute2, etc, but on a woody system, static
Ethernet configuration is usually set up by /etc/init.d/networking,
which uses the 'ifupdown' package. There's a man page `man 5 interfaces`
that tells you how to set up your /etc/network/interfaces file for a
fixed (static) Ethernet configuration.

> I also note that if specific options are not selected during the kernel 
> build certain functions are lost.  (eg pon)

Not sure if this is relevant, but if you set your options which `make
config` or `make xconfig` they should get stored in a .config file and
don't need to be reselected. But maybe this isn't what you're referring
to?

> Now for DNS, DHCP, routing, firewalling, Apache, Samba etc, etc!!  Oh for 
> the day when each of these has a simple, effective, reliable setup program 
> from the command line ...

Just as a point of interest, consider *why* there would ever be "simple,
effective, reliable set programmes". Basically, someone would have to
write a setup programme. And that would be great for 'getting started'.
However, the downside is that it's not so useful after you've "got
started" -- generally, it's easier to copy-and-paste an existing config
or to manipulate a text file without jumping through menu systems, etc.
Also, the setup programme would have to understand all the Apache
modules, etc, which means the maintainer of the programme needs to
respond to every change in the Apache modules. All doable, and
commercial solutions do of course exist, but there's not so much
incentive or utility for traditional UNIX admins. Having said that, of
course, it is almost surprising if someone hasn't whipped up a Tcl/Tk
prototype :-) Another thing is that 'guided setup' software (GUIs or
otherwise) often interfere with the placement of comments in text-based
config files. So...once you have done your initial configuration and
written comments in your config files, you usually don't want a setup
programme to come along and delete them or screw them up.