X with ssh, (was Novell to acquire Suse)

[bscott at ntisys.com]

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, at 9:04am, michael.odonnell at comcast.net wrote:
> On my Debian box I'm running this:
> 
>    ssh 3.6.1p2-9 "Secure rlogin/rsh/rcp replacement (OpenSSH)"
[...]
>    if test -f /etc/default/ssh; then
>        . /etc/default/ssh

  Not all systems are running Debian.  For example:

	$ cat /etc/redhat-release 
	Red Hat Linux release 7.3 (Valhalla)
	$ rpm -qf `which sshd`
	openssh-server-3.1p1-14
	$ grep default /etc/rc.d/init.d/sshd 
	$

  Checking the OpenSSH 3.4p1 source package (the latest I have), it does not
appear to have any mention of any /etc/default file in any of the files,
even the contributed ones.  I think it is safe to assume that is a
Debian-specific extension.  Which does not make the information about it
invalid, but it is useful to know where it applies.  :-)

> And FYI, whether or not it's documented, the use of that /etc/default/
> approach is not just an SSH-specific hack ...

  /etc/default is used by many Unix-like systems and programs.  Some use it
more then others.  Obviously, Debian is one of them.  Red Hat and its
derivatives tend to favor /etc/sysconfig instead, although /etc/default is
still used by some of Red Hat's packages, at least.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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