Server issues

Tue Nov 20 16:36:16 UTC 2007

On Nov 20, 2007 4:54 PM, Loye Young <loye.young at iycc.net> wrote:
> > About documentation, i think that every avahi tools has a manpage
> > sebest at delly2:~$ man avahi-
> > avahi-autoipd         avahi-autoipd.action  avahi-daemon
> > avahi-daemon.conf
>
> <code>
> loyeyoung at homer :~$ man avahi
> No manual entry for avahi
> loyeyoung at homer:~$ man avahi-daemon  # This does have a man page, but it
> doesn't explain much to someone who doesn't already know
> loyeyoung at homer:~$ man avahi-autoipd
> No manual entry for avahi-autoipd
> loyeyoung at homer:~$ man avahi-autoipd.action
> No manual entry for avahi-autoipd.action
> loyeyoung at homer:~$ man avahi-daemon.conf # This does have a man page, but it
> doesn't explain much to someone who doesn't already know
> </code>
>
>
> > About not starting avahi-daemon: (this is ubuntu/debian specific)
> <snip details>
> (1) Your comments are helpful and should be easily accessible in the
> documentation.
It's a community effort, you can now add this information to the documentation.

> (2) AVAHI_DAEMON_START=0 should be default, IMHO. Better yet, avahi
This is your opinion, some people doesn't agree, that's why it's
possible to disable it.

> shouldn't be the system at all unless installed. At most, it should be a
> "Suggested" dependency.
> (3) Still doesn't explain how to get avahi off the machine and leave it in a
> usable and upgradeable state.
Some part of an OS can't be removed (i don't know if it's the case for
avahi) without breaking the system in some way.
Why do you want to "remove" it, disabling it is not enough?

>
>
> > So what is the missing documentation in avahi?
> (1) See above.
> (2) How it interacts with and overrides (some would argue "hijacks") the
> normal Debian networking system of ifupdown, /etc/network/interfaces, etc.
> (3) What the jargon in the documentation means. E.g., the following line
> from the avahi-daemon manpage is unintelligible to someone who doesn't
> already know the avahi system:
It's perfectly intelligible to someone who knows zeroconf, avahi is
just an implementation of of it.

>        " The  daemon  registers local  IP addresses and static services
> using mDNS/DNS-SD and provides
>        two IPC APIs for local programs to make use of the mDNS  record
> cache the  avahi-daemon maintains. "
> Whoever wrote this must have an affinity for tax regulations under the U.S.
> Internal Revenue Code. ;-)

Before this sentence that you can read:
" The  Avahi  mDNS/DNS-SD  daemon  implementing  Apple's ZeroConf
architecture (also known as "Rendezvous" or "Bonjour")."
If the manpage is not clear enough, you could look for "zeroconf" in wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroconf

>
>
>
>
> On Nov 20, 2007 9:15 AM, Sebastien Estienne <sebastien.estienne at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Nov 20, 2007 3:52 PM, Loye Young < loye.young at iycc.net> wrote:
> > > I can't be at the meeting today, but I have two issues that trouble me.
> > >
> > >
> > > AVAHI
> > > I absolutely hate avahi. I don't want my machines to be advertising
> > > services and trying to find them, especially when I am running a
> > > server that's connected straight to the Internet. But getting avahi
> > > off a system is harder than I expected, especially since avahi doesn't
> > > seem to have good documentation.
> > > (1) Should avahi ever be on a production server that's exposed to the
> net?
> > > (2) Is there any documentation on how to get it off the system and
>  > > still leave the system in a usable and upgradeable state?
> >
> > About not starting avahi-daemon: (this is ubuntu/debian specific)
> > sebest at delly2:~$ cat /etc/default/avahi-daemon
> > # 0 = don't start, 1 = start
> > AVAHI_DAEMON_START=1
> >
> > set it to 0 and then sudo /etc/init.d/avahi-daemon stop
> > Now on avahi-daemon will never start again
> >
> > If you only want avahi to publish nothing, just read the manpage:
> > avahi-daemon.conf it is in the "SEE ALSO" of avahi-daemon
> > disable-publishing=yes
> >
> > there are a lot of other well documented options to fit your needs
> >
> > About documentation, i think that every avahi tools has a manpage
> > sebest at delly2:~$ man avahi-
> > avahi-autoipd         avahi-autoipd.action  avahi-daemon
> > avahi-daemon.conf
> >
> > On avahi website:
> > http://avahi.org/wiki/Avah4users#Documentation
> >
> > So what is the missing documentation in avahi?
> >
> > >
> > > DOCUMENTATION
> > > Every package should have a man page as a matter of course, because
> > > the manpage system is the standard documentation This is especially so
> > > in a command-line only environment. manpage-alert tells me that about
> > > 10% of the packages on my server, and 20% of the packages on my Ubuntu
> > > desktop machines, don't have man pages. Substantially all of the
> > > missing man pages are from packages that are maintained by the Ubuntu
> > > community. Debian policy requires man pages before including the
> > > package in the repositories. Every once in a while, some slip into the
> > > repos without the man pages, but mostly Debian does a good job of
> > > requiring this basic level of documentation.
> > >
> > > Happy Trails,
> > >
> > > Loye Young
> > > Isaac & Young Computer Company
> > > Laredo, Texas
> > > http://www.iycc.biz
>  > >
> > > --
> > > ubuntu-server mailing list
> > > ubuntu-server at lists.ubuntu.com
> > > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server
> > > More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
>  > Sebastien Estienne
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> Loye Young
> Isaac & Young Computer Company
> Laredo, Texas
> (956) 857-1172
> loye.young at iycc.net
>


-- 
Sebastien Estienne