[ntp:hackers] 4.2.5p203 adds ntpq dumpcfg command

Hal Murray hmurray at megapathdsl.net
Mon Aug 17 18:48:19 UTC 2009


>> AND there is no mention of it in the HTML files. >
>> We need some documentation.

> IMO it's still a little early to document it, until it takes a more
> final form.

Not that I always set a great example or anything, but documentation really 
is important.

My straw man is that code shouldn't go into bitkeeper without the 
corresponding documentation.  If nothing else, that gives the documentation a 
chance to get debugged along with the code.



> What is it?  A mechanism to dump the active configuration file(s) that
> have been applied to a running ntpd.  If you use ntpq's :config or
> configfromfile commands, the additional "files" are appended after the
> dump of the primary ntp.conf contents.  This allows you to make
> changes at runtime, decide you like the result, and save it as a
> ntp.conf-format file to be used in a subsequent startup or ntpq
> configfromfile.

That sounds potentially attractive.

Thinking out loud....

How does it handle comments?

My straw man would be  something like a diff against the current config file 
so I can do the edits by hand, inserting the changes and comments in the 
right place rather than at the end of the file.


I can think of two types of info I might like to see.

One is history, perhaps commands with time stamps.  Perhaps config changes 
over the net should get logged.  (Perhaps they already do.  Perhaps this 
should be part of the great logging cleanup.)

The other is the current status and/or a diff between the current status and 
the initial config file.  If there are paired commands that cancel eachother 
(add X, delete X), it would reduce clutter to omit them from the output.  
Similarly for a sequence of commands that override the previous ones, just 
keep the last one.



-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.





More information about the hackers mailing list