[OmniOS-discuss] file system organisation for pkg packages

[Eric Sproul]

On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Tobias Oetiker <tobi at oetiker.ch> wrote:
> from a system management point of view I like to have a simple rule
> to decide where the config is and where the 'data' is ...
>
> so keeping the application in /opt/vendor is perfect for the static
> part of the application ...
>
> but having the configuration and the data in the same tree makes it
> harder to know what is part of the distribution and what is part of
> the application ...
>
> I can obviously use symlinks to fix things, but it would be great
> if there were some admin friendly suggestions ...

I completely agree.  Local and/or app-specific configuration, data,
logs. etc. belongs in an entirely different location that is not under
packaging control.  For example, at OmniTI, we have Apache in
/opt/apache22, but all app data lives under /www, so the httpd.conf is
in /www/etc, logs are in /www/logs, etc.  In most of our projects,
/www is an SCM checkout, where httpd.conf and an SMF manifest are
under project-specific control.

This model has worked well for us, because everyone can share a
package that delivers a few sample files for bootstrapping new
projects, but stays out of the way of the project-specific pieces.

In my personal opinion, having multiple providers trying to deliver
bits to the same set of shared directories just invites collisions and
misery.