[geeks] Need some Solaris 10 svccfg help...

[Phil Stracchino]

...because the svccfg man page appears to be internally inconsistent and
certain aspects of its behavior are baffling.

Start point of the problem:
Let's take for example svc:/network/http.  If I want to enable ssl, I
need to change the property httpd/ssl from false to true.  As far as I
can tell from the documentation, this change gets saved to the
repository ONLY when I perform a svccfg import.  To perform a svccfg
import, I have to first perform an svccfg export.  So if I export to a
file, check that the export has the correct changes, then import that
file, all goes well (apparently) and my change gets applied at last.

Problem is, the next time I export, I get messages like this one:

svccfg: Expected property use_profile of property group
svc:/network/http:apache2/:properties/start is missing.

Now, when I go hunting through the man page, I find this under export:

     export service_FMRI [>file]

         The service description for the  specified  service  and
         its   instances   is   written  to  standard  output  or
         redirected  to  the  given  file.  Dependencies  with  a
         boolean  "external"  property set to true are omitted in
         the belief that they were created on behalf  of  another
         service.

         Without the -a option, property groups  containing  pro-
         tected  information  (identified  by the presence of the
         read_authorization property-see smf_security(5)) will be
         exported  without  their  property  values.  When the -a
         option is specified, all values  will  be  archived.  An
         error  results  if  there are insufficient privileges to
         read these values.

So, I figure, I need to use that -a along with export somehow.  But!


SYNOPSIS
     /usr/sbin/svccfg [-v] [-s FMRI]


     /usr/sbin/svccfg [-v] [-s FMRI] subcommand [args]...


     /usr/sbin/svccfg [-v] [-s FMRI] -f command-file

No mention of an -a option there.  So, I figure, OK, I will try -a in
every possible position on the commandline where it could go:

babylon4:root:/etc/apache2:122 # svccfg -v export svc:/network/ssh -a
svccfg: Syntax error.
babylon4:root:/etc/apache2:123 # svccfg -v export -a svc:/network/ssh
svccfg: Syntax error.
babylon4:root:/etc/apache2:124 # svccfg -v -a export svc:/network/ssh
svccfg: illegal option -- a
Usage:  svccfg [-v] [-s FMRI] [-f file]
        svccfg [-v] [-s FMRI] <command> [args]

So, is it just me, or ... can I *apply* property changes only via a
sequence of actions (export, import) that will always lose certain
properties from the service profile unless I use an option that I'm not
allowed to use because there's no syntax for using it?


Confused here....


While I'm at it, I'm aware of the snapshot-revert feature of svccfg, but
there doesn't appear to be any way to LIST the existing snapshots.  Am I
missing something?



-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.