On 05/22/2013 10:59 PM, David G.Miller wrote:
> Elias Persson <delreich@...> writes:
> <SNIP>
>> On 2013-05-22 17:45, Joseph Thomas Szep wrote:
>>> On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 08:06:47AM -0700, Yasha Karant wrote:
>>>> Is there a single list of the various "stock" configuration files
>>>> and directories used by the various applications that come with EL?
>
>> If it's config files you're interested in, `rpm -qc ...` should
>> limit that to just files the packager considers config'able.
>>
>> Taking that one step further, this should get you a list of all
>> such files:
>>
>>       rpm -qac | grep -v -e '(contains no files)'
>>
>> Keep in mind though that what the packager considers to be a
>> config file (or for some other reason has marked as such) does
>> not always correspond to what normally would be considered such.
>> I certainly wouldn't have thought of /var/lib/rpm/* as configs...
>>
>>
> In rpmbuild speak configuration files typically have two characteristics:
>
> 1) The file will usually be modified after installation, and
> 2) The modified file contains information that shouldn't be overwritten by
> an update.
>
> What we think of as configuration data fits this criteria but so do lots of
> other files.  Probably a better name would be something like "user
> configurable" or "configuration dependent."  Classifying a file as a config
> file also gives the user a way to do rpm --verify and filter files that are
> expected to not match what was installed.
>
> Cheers,
> Dave
>

I agree -- "configuration dependent" modifiable would be a better 
description.   At one time, these were straightforward to find, and 
often, the man page would list the names of each configuration file and 
ofter the functions thereof.  The source code for the application 
typically would have a "comment" section that listed the internal layout 
of each such file, also typically a plain text file that could be 
modified with a plain text editor (e.g., vi).  This sort of information 
is increasingly difficult to find, with some configuration files written 
as nominally plain text but in such schemes as XML.

I have a suggestion that could be initiated in SL and perhaps then 
diffuse into other Linux varieties.  This suggestion would NOT cause any 
loss of binary compatibility with other EL derivatives.

The suggestion:  a specific directory that serves as a repository (not a 
distribution repository, but one on a locally accessible host machine, 
including the immediate machine being used).  Each application (say kile 
or vi) that has a configuration file  would have a configuration-list 
file (say, kile-config) that contains the actual list of configuration 
files, both kept centrally within a system or for each user home 
directory, and, if possible, the use/content template of each such file. 
  It would be up to the maintainer of the application to supply this 
configuration-list.  Initially, there would be very few of these, but as 
time proceeds, there would be more contributions to this set of 
configuration-list files, ultimately addressing the problem.

Yasha Karant