Bug 377595

Summary:	sys-libs/glibc: please support having resolv.conf in /var
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Michał Górny <mgorny>
Component:	[OLD] Core system	Assignee:	Gentoo Toolchain Maintainers <toolchain>
Status:	RESOLVED UPSTREAM
Severity:	enhancement	CC:	binki, dagger, lack, nirbheek, openrc, pchrist, qiaomuf, radek, steev
Priority:	Normal
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Michał Górny archtester

2011-08-03 17:59:06 UTC

Considering that in modern systems resolv.conf is often generated (and thus written) in runtime, /etc seems no longer correct location for it. What I'd really like to see is glibc looking for it somewhere in /var, and falling back to static /etc/resolv.conf if not found.

I'm CC-ing NetworkManager, openresolv & openrc maintainers, as they're major cases of rewriting resolv.conf in Gentoo.

I've already suggested that to NetworkManager upstream [1], and it seems that NM will allow supplying alternate resolv.conf path [2]. Not sure, however, if we should first post this to glibc ml or try to get a working implementation.

[1]:http://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2011-August/msg00031.html
[2]:http://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2011-August/msg00032.html

Comment 1 William Hubbs gentoo-dev

2011-08-03 22:49:17 UTC

My concern about putting it in /var would be, will it be available early
enough if /var is on a separate partition?

Comment 2 Michał Górny archtester

2011-08-04 02:13:03 UTC

(In reply to comment #1)
> My concern about putting it in /var would be, will it be available early
> enough if /var is on a separate partition?

That's why I'm suggesting not using weird kinds of things like symlinks and just falling back to /etc when not available at the moment. If someone needs resolver that early during the bootup, he/she is probably ok with some kind of static configuration as well.

Also, someone mentioned using tmpfs-mounted /run for it. That seems like quite a good solution too.

Comment 3 SpanKY gentoo-dev

2011-08-06 10:23:52 UTC

i'm not interested in mucking with glibc ahead of it being merged upstream.  if you want to develop/test, then you can easily do that yourself.

as for symlinks + /var not being available, nothing is stopping you from keeping your "fallback" resolv.conf in an otherwise empty /var until it gets a chance to be mounted.  nothing says /var must be empty in order to mount on top if it.

so from the glibc perspective, there's nothing to do here.  i think that really only leaves openresolv.