Avahi init script fun

[Trent Lloyd]

The new avahi init script stuff is confusing quite alot of users, see

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/avahi/+bug/55836
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/avahi/+bug/62872
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/avahi/+bug/64634
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/avahi/+bug/65587

among others.

The main source of confusion is that with the /etc/default/avahi-daemon
file having AVAHI_DAEMON_START=0 by default, you can't run
/etc/init.d/avahi-daemon start, nor can you use update-rc.d and have the
daemon start, and theres no obvious reason why

I really think we need to solve this for edge, I'm thinking theres
2 possible solutions

1) Detect if the script is being run interactively (see pcmciautils
which does this) and print out a message, this solves the interactive
part of the problem

2) Avahi is actually started by dbus
(/etc/dbus-1/event.d/25avahi-daemon)
I'm thinking if we make this a separate script, which checks the
/etc/defautl file and then starts avahi, and have the standard init
script work, this solves that
 - You can start Avahi manually with /etc/init.d/avahi-daemon as you
   expect
 - If someone uses a boot script manager to start it on boot it should
   work
 - It still wont start on a default install

The only point of confusing I can see coming out of this is that avahi
might start from 2 spots, but that's really no worse than now because
they might not realise its started by dbus anyway and link it into rc2.d
etc

I'm looking for comments as to which people think would be a better
solution or if there are any alternatives to make this less confusing.

Cheers,
Trent

-- 
Trent Lloyd <lathiat at bur.st>
Bur.st Networking Inc.