RE: [RFC ndctl PATCH 0/3] Rename monitor.conf to ndctl.conf as a ndctl global config file

["qi.fuli@fujitsu.com" <qi.fuli@fujitsu.com>]

> On Wed, 2021-06-02 at 09:47 -0700, Dan Williams wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 10:31 PM Verma, Vishal L
> > <vishal.l.verma@intel.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > [switching to the new mailing list]
> > >
> > > On Mon, 2021-05-17 at 08:14 +0900, QI Fuli wrote:
> > > > From: QI Fuli <qi.fuli@fujitsu.com>
> > > >
> > > > This patch set is to rename monitor.conf to ndctl.conf, and make
> > > > it a global ndctl configuration file that all ndctl commands can refer to.
> > > >
> > > > As this patch set has been pending until now, I would like to know
> > > > if current idea works or not. If yes, I will finish the documents and test.
> > > >
> > > > Signed-off-by: QI Fuli <qi.fuli@fujitsu.com>
> > >
> > > Hi Qi,
> > >
> > > Thanks for picking up on this! The approach generally looks good to
> > > me, I think we can definitely move forward with this direction.
> > >
> > > One thing that stands out is - I don't think we can simply rename
> > > the existing monitor.conf. We have to keep supporting the 'legacy'
> > > monitor.conf so that we don't break any deployments. I'd suggest
> > > keeping the old monitor.conf as is, and continuing to parse it as
> > > is, but also adding a new ndctl.conf as you have done.
> > >
> > > We can indicate that 'monitor.conf' is legacy, and any new features
> > > will only get added to the new global config to encourage migration
> > > to the new config. Perhaps we can even provide a helper script to
> > > migrate the old config to new - but I think it needs to be a user
> > > triggered action.
> > >
> > > This is timely as I also need to go add some config related
> > > functionality to daxctl, and basing it on this would be perfect, so
> > > I'd love to get this series merged in soon.
> >
> > I wonder if ndctl should treat /etc/ndctl like a conf.d directory of
> > which all files with the .conf suffix are concatenated into one
> > combined configuration file. I.e. something that maintains legacy, but
> > also allows for config fragments to be deployed individually.
> 
> Agreed, this would be the most flexible. ciniparser doesn't seem to support
> multiple files directly, but perhaps ndctl can, early on, load up multiple
> files/dictionaries, and stash them in ndctl_ctx. Then there can be accessor
> functions to retrieve specific conf strings from that as needed by different
> commands.

Thank you very much for the comments.

I also agree, and I am working on the v2 patch set now.
I found that the style of ndctl.conf is different from monitor.conf, since there is no section name in monitor.conf.
Do I need to keep the legacy style in monitor.conf, i.e. Can I add the section name [monitor] to monitor.conf?

Best regards,
QI