Re: gconfd and multiple machines

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 18:22, seth vidal wrote:
> > As I was saying the other day, I don't think "as fast as you can"
> > is necessary to get a corrupt database.
> > 
> > The best that writing the files atomically does is give you coherency
> > between the keys in a single directory. But that isn't enough:
> > it should be easy, for instance, to get
> > apps/gnome-terminal/default_profile pointing at a non-existent profile.
> 
> At which point we're stuck with:
> 1. people might corrupt their configs
> or
> 2. or use the orbit connecting over arbitrary tcpip ports b/t machines
> that may or may not be able to talk to one another (the afs example)
> 
> 
> I'm not sure automatic application notification is worth this.

We shouldn't dump out the baby with the bathwater.

It's one of the really cool distinguishing features of GNOME and
adds hugely to the user experience.

(Plus, it's not really notification that is the problem; it's
simply keeping an consistent database.)

Unfortunately, I think the real way forward to fix the problem in
an environment like the one you are in is write a central config 
server that has good Kerberos integration and to which administrators
feel comfortable exporting as widely as their AFS servers.

Though there are things that might be better than nothing -- for
instance, assuming working home directory file system locking,
it shouldn't be that hard to implement something where the
user is presented with the choice of:

 - Stealing the config database from the last session; all
   further changes on the previous session will be lost.

 - Having all changes in this session be lost after logout.

When they do a second login.

Regards,
                                     Owen