Bug 157189

Summary:	bsdinstall(8): Default /etc/sysctl.conf should be removed.
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	lyndon
Component:	bin	Assignee:	freebsd-sysinstall (Nobody) <sysinstall>
Status:	Open ---
Severity:	Affects Only Me	CC:	bugmeister, emaste, grahamperrin
Priority:	Normal	Keywords:	install
Version:	8.1-STABLE
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description lyndon 2011-05-19 23:30:09 UTC

	The installers put in place a sysctl.conf file that does
	nothing, but which contains a $FreeBSD$ header. This results
	in a no-op file serves only to create noise when mergemaster
	is run on a system that actually uses sysctl.conf to override
	default settings. Since the distribution will never use
	this file to set system defaults, the $FreeBSD$ header is
	pointless.

	As with /etc/rc.local, this file should not be present
	unless explicitly created by the system administrator.

Fix: 

Remove /etc/sysctl.conf from the distribution installs.
How-To-Repeat: 	n/a

Comment 1 Eitan Adler freebsd_committer

2012-04-15 21:27:24 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->freebsd-sysinstall

this may or may not be relevent to the new installer, but assign the correct list.

Comment 2 Eitan Adler freebsd_committer

2018-05-28 19:48:30 UTC

batch change:

For bugs that match the following
-  Status Is In progress 
AND
- Untouched since 2018-01-01.
AND
- Affects Base System OR Documentation

DO:

Reset to open status.


Note:
I did a quick pass but if you are getting this email it might be worthwhile to double check to see if this bug ought to be closed.

Comment 3 Mark Linimon freebsd_committer

2024-11-27 06:22:41 UTC

^To submitter: is this aging PR still relevant?

Comment 4 lyndon 2024-11-27 16:57:16 UTC

If the behaviour is still the same, then yes, it's still relevant.  I haven't done a cold install in a while, so I don't know the current behaviour.

I can try running an install this weekend to see if anything has changed. It would be worthwhile to do that, anyway, because there were a number of other files that exhibited the same problem.  If I rerun the install I can track those down and add them to the ticket.

Comment 5 Ed Maste freebsd_committer

2024-11-27 17:07:47 UTC

Two specific parts of the original report are no longer applicable:
- After the transition to Git $FreeBSD$ is no longer expanded (and most have been removed)
- mergemaster has been removed

The question of whether it's preferable to for the installer to provide no /etc/sysctl.conf, or create an /etc/sysctl.conf with only comments, remains.

Comment 6 lyndon 2024-11-27 17:25:33 UTC

If the merge collisions can no longer happen then my issue is resolved.

As for whether comment-only stub files should be installed, I would prefer they aren't.  To my thinking it just adds clutter, but I very much lean towards minimalism.  I will note that OpenBSD has been leaving those out of the distribution for as long as I can remember (admittedly that can sometimes be only five minutes), and civilization has not collapsed :-)