Re: Proposal: Disable compression of newsyslog by default

On 2023-12-23 07:09, Enji Cooper wrote:
> This impacts embedded systems or jails which use UFS as the default
> /var/log backed device. There are quite a few larger consumers of
> FreeBSD out there that still use UFS instead of ZFS.

I appreciate your feedback!

Thank you for pointing out the implications of this change for embedded 
systems and jails using UFS. I understand your concerns, especially 
regarding larger FreeBSD consumers who might still rely on UFS instead 
of ZFS.

Note that the committed change was designed to simplify code 
maintenance, particularly for downstream software vendors.  By reducing 
the number of configuration lines in newsyslog.conf to a single line in 
/etc/crontab, it makes it easier for downstream maintainers to follow 
the latest FreeBSD codebase, because they don't have to manually solve 
merge conflicts when someone changes newsyslog.conf anymore.  This 
should ease the integration and maintenance processes for these vendors.

> Adding this instead into bsdinstall and the documentation as a suggested
>   knob seems like a good way to go.
> 
> Just something to keep in mind when making this change.

Now back to the proposed behavior change, regarding your suggestion to 
change the default in the installer, I have reservations about this 
approach. One of my primary motivations for this change is to move away 
from using flags to specify which compression method should be used.  In 
my view, the software package distributed configuration should not 
dictate the compression method to be used by the user. Rather, its role 
should be to inform newsyslog about the suitability of a file for 
compression. This shift in approach aims to provide users with greater 
flexibility and autonomy in managing their compression settings.

Cheers,