Re: setting runlevel to single-user

[Ben Goren <ben_(_at_)_trumpetpower_(_dot_)_com>]

On 2004 Oct 29, at 5:23 AM, Brett Lymn wrote:

>> Please describe one of these uber-complex systems with lots
>> of complex startup scripts and interdependencies that can't be handled
>> by a simple rc script and rc.conf.
>>
>
> Sure thing.  Ever had to manage a machine that is used to run Oracle
> Financials?

Ah--I thought you might have one of those behemoths in mind.

So, permit me to say: if you're running Oracle on OpenBSD, you're nuts. 
Wacko. Whistlin' Dixie with the Leprechauns.

(Okay, if you're trying out their ``free'' download version on a test 
box, that's something different, but hardly relevant or important.)

Why? You're running Oracle for one or both of two reasons. The best 
reason is that you've got a problem that only Oracle can solve. The 
most common reason is that Oracle is the big, impressive name.

In the first case, the only reason to *not* run Oracle on a dedicated 
system running an officially-approved-by-Oracle configuration (and, it 
should go without saying, OpenBSD is *NOT* one of those) is if you know 
more about Oracle than the Oracle support staff and need to solve a 
problem that one of their standard setups can't handle. It happens, I'm 
sure, but ya ain't gonna read about it on misc_(_at_)__(_dot_)_

In the second case, you paid all that money to Oracle largely for their 
support. So you want to run Oracle on a nice, officially-supported 
platform to get the most bang for your buck. The same PHB who paid for 
Oracle in the first place because it's a big, impressive name ain't 
never heard of OpenBSD and certainly won't authorize tainting their 
precious Oracle anything so unorthodox as OpenBSD.

This holds true for all those other big-money poorly-designed 
leviathans that suffer from similar problems. You're not going to be 
running them on OpenBSD. If you're running them on a free operating 
system, it'll either be one of the commercial Linux distributions or 
*maybe* FreeBSD. If you *are* running it on OpenBSD, you sure don't 
need help 'round here. In any event, you're certainly running it on a 
dedicated machine, carefully crafted down to the power supply.

In that environment, OpenBSD's boot style isn't even on your radar. If 
you *are* using OpenBSD, you've modified so much else that writing your 
own init code is little more than an afterthought.

So...why should we make OpenBSD overly complex in order to deal with 
poorly-designed, expensive, non-free applications that nobody'll ever 
run on OpenBSD anyway?

Cheers,

b&

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