Re: flexfax: HFAXD access control

[Nico Garcia <raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu>]

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For Matthias and others who are tired of this issue, I warn you now
that this is an old argument and probably boring as spit.

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998 Matthias.Apitz@SOFTCON.de wrote:

> Nico Garcia wrote:

>     I've argued before for changing that filename and moving the docs to
>     "hosts.fax", for potentially this sort of situation or confusion
>     to new users. I've been a bit busy to re-submit this patch for the
>     latest update. As maintainer of the code, do you want it?
> 
> I explained a few times to the list and to you directly the
> reason for not wanting this change. It affects all running
> installations and the advantage of such a change isn't this
> worth compared(!) with the confusion it will cause.

And I accept your reasons, although I disagree with them, especially when
cases like this come up.

> Also I can't see how the text of the man page of the /etc/hosts
> file which goes like:

> NAME
>      hosts - host name data base
> 
> SYNOPSIS
>      /etc/hosts
> DESCRIPTION
>      The hosts file  contains  information  regarding  the  known
>      hosts  on  the  DARPA Internet......

> has something todo with fax software and can cause such trouble
> mixing up the files.

In and of itself, it's not confusing. The fact that the man page for
the HylaFAX "hosts" is fundamentally available only by typing "man -M
$HYLAFAXMANDIR" where HYLYFAXMANDIR is wherever you have configured
the HylaFAX man pages to exist, is the basic problem.

Multiple man pages with the same name, even if they are in different
man directories, *is* asking for confusion, and it doesn't make
sense to force users to play extra games with their man command
just to reference such pages. Distinctive system configuration
files (like /etc/hosts) should not have their names repeated for
application specific files, especially since they have completely
different formats and functions.

> The main problem is that everyone who goes using HylaFAX should
> start by locating all man pages and reading them all *before* running
> the first start of the server (maybe even before start to compile
> the software). If you locate all pages you will perhaps print (and
> read) the right hosts(4F) file by itself. The directory where the files
> are stored during installation may be changed during run of ./configure.

Of course. But the fact that, for example, the hfaxd man page refers
you to the "hosts(5)" man page under SunOS (which uses slightly
different man suffixes than SGI, which I believe refers to
"hosts(4f)", means that typing "man hosts" or even "man 5 hosts" gets
you the wrong hosts page. I also dread the first time some newbie
sys-admin goes in and edits his /etc/hosts file instead of
$SPOOLDIR/etc/hosts to provide HylaFAX service and screws up his
entire subnet, or because one crufty admin has configured his system's
$MANPATH to be "/usr/hylafax/man:/usr/man", his shiny new replacement
(not knowing about this modification) reads the wrong hosts man page
and gets completely confused.

			Nico Garcia
			Engineer, CIRL 
			Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary
			raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu

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