Tim Thompson tim.thompson@netapp.com writes:

For this reason, in a future release of ONTAP more things (more than just the per-volume options) will be automatically persistent. You can still put them in /etc/rc, but the trend will be toward not needing to.

Seems like a bad trend. I'm not really keen on someone being able to change the configuration of filer without me knowing it. Options should be stored in text files that can be read or edited by a human.

Also, all option changes should be logged. Hence, we use RCS on NetApp configuration files (effectively forcing logging). Sticking options into the filesystem metadata makes logging changes harder.

A question. Given the choice between:

• Having a command tell you "there's a conflicting command already in /etc/rc, you should change it there as well (or just remove it)"

vs.

• Having the command automatically update /etc/rc with the change, if it contains a conflicting command.

Which do you think would be a better approach?

The former.

- Dan