Re: git: 62a149bf6219 - main - Add new rc: machine_id to generate /etc/machine-id

On Thu, Jan 12, 2023 at 12:24 AM Baptiste Daroussin <bapt@freebsd.org> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 07:08:39PM -0800, Rick Macklem wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 9, 2023 at 6:40 AM Matteo Riondato <matteo@freebsd.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 2022-12-24 at 03:39 EST, Tobias C. Berner <tcberner@freebsd.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > >Moin moin
> > > >
> > > >I think it tries to solve the same problem of giving the machine a unique id.
> > > >
> > > >From the linux man page [1]
> > > >
> > > >       The machine ID does not change based on local or network
> > > >       configuration or when hardware is replaced. Due to this and its
> > > >       greater length, it is a more useful replacement for the
> > > >       gethostid(3) call that POSIX specifies.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Does this make or should it make hostid obsolete?
> > I hope not, since the NFSv4 client uses /etc/hostid.
> >
> > > If yes, then changes are needed to deorbit hostid. If not, why not?
> > If this is somehow a better algorithm than the one used by uuidgen(1)
> > then I would prefer seeing that utility improved instead of a new one
> > being added.
>
> This is exactly what has been done. Here we are speaking a rc script to generate
> the file expected by userland software (from the ports tree).
>
> https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/bin/uuidgen/uuidgen.c?id=f176fe8e7f638e585afcd2f4dd52a522c4648f63
>
Oops, sorry about that. From the original commit log, I thought that the commit
added a new utility, so that there were now two utilities in the source tree.

> >
> > If software needs to acquire the host uuid, the code can simply
> > get the sysctl kern.hostuuid.
>
> >
> > Unless there is a really good reason to have this one in the
> > system as well as uuidgen(1), I'd suggest you revert this commit.
> >
> > rick
>
> I don't see why it should be reverted. more and more of the package ecosystem
> requires this feature (and it what is provided by dbus is not sufficient
> anymore), this is what those changes (addition to uuidgen(1) and rc script to
> generate the machine-id file) is addressing.
>
I agree. I mistakenly thought a new utility had been added.  Now I see it is
a noew option on uuidgen(1), which seems fine to me.

Sorry for the noise, rick

> Now can we reuse part of the changes to improve/replace hostid, this is a
> complerly unrelated study that could (should?) be done by whom is willing to
> have a look and knowledgeable enough in this area.
>
> Best regards,
> Bapt