Sysconfig Information

Sysconfig Information
The following information outlines some of the various files in /etc/sysconfig, their function, and their contents. This information is not intended to be complete, as many of these files have a variety of options that are only used in very specific or rare circumstances.

Files in /etc/sysconfig
The following files are normally found in /etc/sysconfig:

amd

apmd

authconfig

cipe

clock

desktop

firewall

harddisks

hwconf

i18n

init

ipchains

iptables

irda

keyboard

kudzu

mouse

network

pcmcia

rawdevices

sendmail

soundcard

ups

vncservers

It is possible that your system may be missing a few of them if the corresponding program that would need that file is not installed.

Next, we will take a look at each one.

/etc/sysconfig/amd
The /etc/sysconfig/amd file contains various parameters used by amd allowing for the automounting and automatic unmounting of filesystems.

/etc/sysconfig/apmd
The /etc/sysconfig/apmd file is used by apmd as a configuration for what things to start/stop/change on suspend or resume. It is set up to turn on or off apmd during startup, depending on whether your hardware supports Advanced Power Management (APM) or if you choose not to use it. apm is a monitoring daemon that works with power management code within the Linux kernel. It can alert you to a low battery if you are using Red Hat Linux on a laptop, among other things.

/etc/sysconfig/authconfig
The /etc/sysconfig/authconfig file sets the kind of authorization to be used on the host. It contains one or more of the following lines:

USEMD5=, where is one of the following:

yes — MD5 is used for authentication.

no — MD5 is not used for authentication.

USEKERBEROS=, where is one of the following:

yes — Kerberos is used for authentication.

no — Kerberos is not used for authentication.

USELDAPAUTH=, where is one of the following:

yes — LDAP is used for authentication.

no — LDAP is not used for authentication.

/etc/sysconfig/clock
The /etc/sysconfig/clock file controls the interpretation of values read from the system clock. Earlier releases of Red Hat Linux used the following values (which are deprecated):

CLOCKMODE=, where is one of the following:

GMT — Indicates that the clock is set to Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time).

ARC — Indicates the ARC console's 42-year time offset is in effect (for Alpha-based systems only).

Currently, the correct values are:

UTC=, where is one of the following boolean values:

true — Indicates that the clock is set to Universal Time. Any other value indicates that it is set to local time.

ARC=, where is the following:

true — Indicates the ARC console's 42-year time offset is in effect. Any other value indicates that the normal UNIX epoch is assumed (for Alpha-based systems only).

ZONE= — Indicates the timezone file under /usr/share/zoneinfo that /etc/localtime is a copy of, such as:

ZONE="America/New York"


/etc/sysconfig/desktop
The /etc/sysconfig/desktop file specifies the desktop manager to be run, such as:

DESKTOP="GNOME"


/etc/sysconfig/firewall
The /etc/sysconfig/firewall file contains various firewall settings. By default, this file (if created) is empty.

/etc/sysconfig/harddisks
The /etc/sysconfig/harddisks file allows you to tune your hard drive(s). You can also use /etc/sysconfig/hardiskhd[a-h], to configure parameters for specific drives.

Warning
Do not make changes to this file lightly. If you change the default values stored here, you could corrupt all of the data on your hard drive(s).


The /etc/sysconfig/harddisks file may contain the following:

USE_DMA=1, where setting this to 1 enables DMA. However, with some chipsets and hard drive combinations, DMA can cause data corruption. Check with your hard drive documentation or manufacturer before enabling this.

Multiple_IO=16, where a setting of 16 allows for multiple sectors per I/O interrupt. When enabled, this feature reduces operating system overhead by 30-50%. Use with caution.

EIDE_32BIT=3 enables (E)IDE 32-bit I/O support to an interface card.

LOOKAHEAD=1 enables drive read-lookahead.

EXTRA_PARAMS= specifies where extra parameters can be added.

/etc/sysconfig/hwconf
The /etc/sysconfig/hwconf file lists all the hardware that kudzu detected on your system, as well as the drivers used, vendor ID and device ID information. The kudzu program detects and configures new and/or changed hardware on a system. The /etc/sysconfig/hwconf file is not meant to be manually edited. If you do edit it, devices could suddenly show up as being added or removed.

/etc/sysconfig/i18n
The /etc/sysconfig/i18n file sets the default language, such as:

LANG="en_US"


/etc/sysconfig/init
The /etc/sysconfig/init file controls how the system will appear and function during bootup.

The following values may be used:

BOOTUP=, where is one of the following:

BOOTUP=color means the standard color boot display, where the success or failure of devices and services starting up is shown in different colors.

BOOTUP=verbose means an old style display, which provides more information than purely a message of success or failure.

Anything else means a new display, but without ANSI-formatting.

RES_COL=, where is the number of the column of the screen to start status labels. Defaults to 60.

MOVE_TO_COL=, where moves the cursor to the value in the RES_COL line. Defaults to ANSI sequences output by echo -e.

SETCOLOR_SUCCESS=, where sets the color to a color indicating success. Defaults to ANSI sequences output by echo -e, setting the color to green.

SETCOLOR_FAILURE=, where sets the color to a color indicating failure. Defaults to ANSI sequences output by echo -e, setting the color to red.

SETCOLOR_WARNING=, where sets the color to a color indicating warning. Defaults to ANSI sequences output by echo -e, setting the color to yellow.

SETCOLOR_NORMAL=, where sets the color to 'normal'. Defaults to ANSI sequences output by echo -e.

LOGLEVEL=, where sets the initial console logging level for the kernel. The default is 7; 8 means everything (including debugging); 1 means nothing except kernel panics. syslogd will override this once it starts.

PROMPT=, where is one of the following boolean values:

yes — Enables the key check for interactive mode.

no — Disables the key check for interactive mode.

/etc/sysconfig/ipchains
The /etc/sysconfig/ipchains file contains information used by the kernel to set up ipchains rules regarding packet filtering.

This file is modified by running the service ipchains save command when valid ipchains rules are in place. You should not manually edit this file. Instead, use the ipchains command to configure the necessary packet filtering rules and then save the rules to this file.

/etc/sysconfig/iptables
Like /etc/sysconfig/ipchains, the /etc/sysconfig/iptables file stores information used by the kernel to provide specialized packet filtering services. However, this file is used by iptables rather than ipchains.

You should not modify this file by hand unless you are familiar with methods used to construct iptables rules. These rules are written to /etc/sysconfig/iptables by the service iptables save command, which stores the current iptables rules by running the /sbin/iptables-save program. Then, when iptables is restarted, such as is the case when the system is booted, the /sbin/iptables-restore program reads the file and reinstitutes the packet filtering rules.

/etc/sysconfig/irda
The /etc/sysconfig/irda file controls how infrared devices on your system are configured at startup.

The following values may be used:

IRDA=, where is one of the following boolean values:

yes — irattach will be run, which periodically checks to see if anything is trying to connect to the infrared port, such as another notebook computer trying to make a network connection. For infrared devices to work on your system, this line must be set to yes.

no — irattach will not be run, preventing infrared device communication.

DEVICE=, where is the device (usually a serial port) that handles infrared connections.

DONGLE=, where specifies the type of dongle being used for infrared communication. This setting exists for people who use serial dongles rather than real infrared ports. A dongle is a device that is attached to a traditional serial port to communicate via infrared. This line is commented out by default because notebooks with real infrared ports are far more common than computers with add-on dongles.

DISCOVERY=, where is one of the following boolean values:

yes — Starts irattach in discovery mode, meaning it actively checks for other infrared devices. This needs to be turned on for the machine to be actively looking for an infrared connection (meaning the peer that does not initiate the connection).

no — Does not start irattach in discovery mode.

/etc/sysconfig/keyboard
The /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file controls the behavior of the keyboard. The following values may be used:

KEYBOARDTYPE=sun|pc, which is used on SPARCs only. sun means a Sun keyboard is attached on /dev/kbd, and pc means a PS/2 keyboard connected to a PS/2 port.

KEYTABLE=, where is the name of a keytable file. For example: KEYTABLE="us". The files that can be used as keytables start in /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386 and branch into different keyboard layouts from there, all labeled .kmap.gz. The first file found beneath /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386that matches the KEYTABLE setting is used.

/etc/sysconfig/kudzu
The /etc/sysconfig/kuzdu allows you to specify a safe probe of your system's hardware by kudzu at boot time. A safe probe is one that disables serial port probing.

SAFE=, where is one of the following:

yes — kuzdu does a safe probe.

no — kuzdu does a normal probe.

/etc/sysconfig/mouse
The /etc/sysconfig/mouse file is used to specify information about the available mouse. The following values may be used:

FULLNAME=, where refers to the full name of the kind of mouse being used.

MOUSETYPE=, where is one of the following:

microsoft — A Microsoft™ mouse.

mouseman — A MouseMan™ mouse.

mousesystems — A Mouse Systems™ mouse.

ps/2 — A PS/2 mouse.

msbm — A Microsoft™ bus mouse.

logibm — A Logitech™ bus mouse.

atibm — An ATI™ bus mouse.

logitech — A Logitech™ mouse.

mmseries — An older MouseMan™ mouse.

mmhittab — An mmhittab mouse.

XEMU3=, where is one of the following boolean values:

yes — The mouse only has two buttons, but three mouse buttons should be emulated.

no — The mouse already has three buttons.

XMOUSETYPE=, where refers to the kind of mouse used when X is running. The options here are the same as the MOUSETYPE setting in this same file.

DEVICE=, where is the mouse device.

In addition, /dev/mouse is a symbolic link that points to the actual mouse device.

/etc/sysconfig/network
The /etc/sysconfig/network file is used to specify information about the desired network configuration. The following values may be used:

NETWORKING=, where is one of the following boolean values:

yes — Networking should be configured.

no — Networking should not be configured.

HOSTNAME=, where should be the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN), such as hostname.domain.com, but can be whatever hostname you want.

Note
For compatibility with older software that people might install (such as trn), the /etc/HOSTNAME file should contain the same value as here.


GATEWAY=, where is the IP address of the network's gateway.

GATEWAYDEV=, where is the gateway device, such as eth0.

NISDOMAIN=, where is the NIS domain name.

/etc/sysconfig/pcmcia
The /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia file is used to specify PCMCIA configuration information. The following values may be used:

PCMCIA=, where is one of the following:

yes — PCMCIA support should be enabled.

no — PCMCIA support should not be enabled.

PCIC=, where is one of the following:

i82365 — The computer has an i82365-style PCMCIA socket chipset.

tcic — The computer has a tcic-style PCMCIA socket chipset.

PCIC_OPTS=, where is the socket driver (i82365 or tcic) timing parameters.

CORE_OPTS=, where is the list of pcmcia_core options.

CARDMGR_OPTS=, where is the list of options for the PCMCIA cardmgr (such as -q for quiet mode; -m to look for loadable kernel modules in the specified directory, and so on). Read the cardmgr man page for more information.

/etc/sysconfig/rawdevices
The /etc/sysconfig/rawdevices file is used to configure raw device bindings, such as:

/dev/raw/raw1 /dev/sda1/dev/raw/raw2 8 5


/etc/sysconfig/sendmail
The /etc/sysconfig/sendmail file allows messages to be sent to one or more recipients, routing the message over whatever networks are necessary. The file sets the default values for the Sendmail application to run. Its default values are to run as a background daemon, and to check its queue once an hour in case something has backed up.

The following values may be used:

DAEMON=, where is one of the following boolean values:

yes — Sendmail should be configured to listen to port 25 for incoming mail. yes implies the use of Sendmail's -bd options.

no — Sendmail should not be configured to listen to port 25 for incoming mail.

QUEUE=1h which is given to Sendmail as -q$QUEUE. The -q option is not given to Sendmail if /etc/sysconfig/sendmail exists and QUEUE is empty or undefined.

/etc/sysconfig/soundcard
The /etc/sysconfig/soundcard file is generated by sndconfig and should not be modified. The sole use of this file is to determine what card entry in the menu to pop up by default the next time sndconfig is run. Soundcard configuration information is located in the /etc/modules.conf file.

It may contain the following:

CARDTYPE=, where is set to, for example, SB16 for a Soundblaster 16 sound card.

/etc/sysconfig/ups
The /etc/sysconfig/ups file is used to specify information about any Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) connected to your system. A UPS can be very valuable for a Red Hat Linux system because it gives you time to correctly shut down the system in the case of power interruption. The following values may be used:

SERVER=, where is one of the following:

yes — A UPS device is connected to your system.

no — A UPS device is not connected to your system.

MODEL=, where must be one of the following or set to NONE if no UPS is connected to the system:

apcsmart — For a APC SmartUPS™ or similar device.

fentonups — For a Fenton UPS™.

optiups — For an OPTI-UPS™ device.

bestups — For a Best Power™ UPS.

genericups — For a generic brand UPS.

ups-trust425+625 — For a Trust™ UPS.

DEVICE=, where specifies where the UPS is connected, such as /dev/ttyS0.

OPTIONS=, where is a special command that needs to be passed to the UPS.

/etc/sysconfig/vncservers
The /etc/sysconfig/vncservers file configures how the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) server starts up. VNC is a remote display system which allows you to view a desktop environment not only on the machine where it is running but across different networks (from a LAN to the Internet) and using a wide variety of machine architectures.

It may contain the following:

VNCSERVERS=, where is set to something like "1:fred", to indicate that a VNC server should be started for user fred on display :1. User fred must have set a VNC password using vncpasswd before attempting to connect to the remote VNC server.

Note that when you use a VNC server, your communication with it is unencrypted, and so it should not be used on an untrusted network. For specific instructions concerning the use of SSH to secure the VNC communication, please read the information found at http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/sshvnc.html. To find out more about SSH, see Chapter 10 or Official Red Hat Linux Customization Guide.