[gentoo-dev] ebuild, ip6tables headaches, kernel confusion, xinetd vs. tcpwrappers

["Justin Vander Ziel" <zielot@thebestisp.com>]

Hello folks.

Some more questions for the eventual Gentoo/linux dev-newbies if nothing
else (and for myself, of course B)

1. I managed to revise the iptables-1.1.2.ebuild script to handle
iptables-1.2 -- and it worked! That is, except for one small problem: I
forgot to build a package list for ebuild and BTW, how do I do this?

2. the ebuild script chokes on versions such as in autofs-4.0.0-pre9.tar.bz2
(with accompanying ebuild file) -- when I do

    # ebuild autofs-4.0.0-pre9.ebuild merge

I get the message

    4.0.0pre9 doesn't appear to be a version or rev string
    !!! packagename is not a valid packagename
    Exiting

3. iptables
when I do

    # modprobe ip6table_filter
    # ip6tables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ppp0 -j MASQUERADE

(this is from from Rusty Russel's Linux 2.4 NAT HOWTO from
netfilter.kernelnotes.org) I get the error message

    iptables: v1.2: can't initialize iptables table 'nat': iptables who? (do
you need to insmod?)
    Perhaps iptables or your kernel needs to be upgraded

(Yes, I upgraded to v1.2 (see number 1 above) thinking perhaps something was
missed and then I did a portage-unmerge of the original sys-apps/iptables...
but I get the exact same error message as I did with 1.1.2 ).

4. kernel confusion
On Sun, 7 Jan 2001 08:55:23 -0700, drobbins@gentoo.org wrote:
> To: achim@gentoo.org
> > Another question, what kernel do you use at the moment test12,
prerelease or
> > final ac1/2/3.?
>
> I'm using test12.
OK, could someone please clarify the *NEW* and bungled kernel naming system?
 - Is there a match between 2.3.X and the 2.4.0-testX kernels?
 - What does final ac1/2/3 refer to?
When all is said and done why not just go with 2.4.0 stable? My neophyte
logic says that if it's a final kernel release that has been blessed by
Linus than at the very least, it must be more stable than the 2.3.X series
or the 2.4.0-testX series (I don't know where the ac1/2/3 fit into this).

5. xinetd vs. tcpwrappers (a.k.a tcpd)
OK, xinetd already provides the services of tcpwrappers so why would you
want to install both by default as it is implied on the Gentoo home page?

6. app suggestions
I haven't seen a master plan/list regarding what get's included in the
production release -- although I do think that it should be limited to one
CD -- AT MOST. IMHO there is definitely such a thing as too many apps. The
whole idea of a distro (again IMHO) is that the developers take the best
that they can find which suit their target audience and put them on the CD
so the end-user consumer doesn't have to make all of those decisions. Now
there are distros out there that believe in the freedom of choice (which I
do as well -- in principle) such as Debian which include EVERYTHING. I'm
hoping that that is not the idea here.
Ok, so I'm sure you get/will get suggestions until the cows come home and
then some. However, I did notice that you have a bootscripts alternative in
the package list that I did not find particularly impressive (Though I seem
to recall that it was mostly because nothing was written for it, yet or else
I can't remember why). Here is my suggested alternative - Linux Boot
Scripts. In fact, it seems such a good idea to me that I think it should be
THE init script. A full description is available here
(http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/boot-scripts/) but here are the
highlights IMHO:
* There is no master script which orchestrates everything. The mini scripts
are kept in /sbin/init.d and init(8) runs all of them, in random order
except where there is a script dependent on another.
* Each script runs any other scripts it depends on, using the need(8)
programme which ensures that a script is only run once.
* runlevels can be supported in one of two ways. The traditional method
would require that the script specified be a directory in which case all the
scripts in the directory would be run. This uses rc1.d etc. with symlinks
back to init.d
R Gooch says that a "more elegant solution is to have a script for each
runlevel, which would look something like this:
    #! /bin/sh
    # /sbin/init.d/runlevel.3
    case "$1" in
      start)
        need runlevel.2
        need portmap
        mount -vat nfs
        ;;
      stop)
        umount -vat nfs
        ;;
    esac
    # End
which seems to be pretty elegant to me as well. Expert comments?

8. cfengine (http://www.gnu.org/software/cfengine/cfengine.html)
This also seems to be the way to go from what I have heard (mostly from
Christopher Brown at http://vip.hpnc.com/~cbbrowne/linuxsysconfig.html.
However, the e-mail responses from him are all at work). Any thoughts on
this?

9. Nifty cd package label in ps if your interested.
I spent a little time in Photoshop LE (I don't have $600 smackers to pay for
the real thing!) and whipped this up. I think it's attractive but it's not
exactly 'production quality'. Anyways if you want a copy I'll send you a
postscript file with the cd label and jacket for gentoo 1.0 rc3

Justin (Just enough to be dangerous) Vander Ziel
mailto:zielot@thebestisp.com