Chapter 7. System Configuration

The /etc/abuild.conf file determines how packages are built on the system. This file sets global parameters; $HOME/.abuild.conf can override any setting from the /etc/abuild.conf on a per-user basis.

Shell script. Comments may appear anywhere, and start with '#'. Variables are in uppercase and follow shell quote syntax.

Please reference the Adélie Linux Developer's Handbook for more information about how to configure /etc/abuild.conf. If you are reading this documentation on your local computer, the Developer's Handbook may be found in the devel/ directory at the same level as this handbook's admin/ directory. If you are reading this documentation online via the Internet, you may find the newest version of the Developer's Handbook at the Adélie Linux Help Centre.

The /etc/apk/repositories file determines the repositories used by the APK package manager for obtaining packages. As noted in the section called “Package repositories”, package repositories contain packages that you may install and uninstall on an Adélie Linux system.

A single URL or file location per line. Comments are not allowed.

A repository must be either a URL (beginning with https://) or an absolute path (such as /srv/packages). The computer's architecture (as specified in /etc/apk/arch) will be appened to the path – for example, specifying the path /srv/packages/repository on a ppc64 computer will result in the packages and APKINDEX being retrieved from /srv/packages/repository/ppc64.

If a repository is invalid, does not have a recognised signing key, or does not exist, it will not be considered by APK. Depending on the parameters passed to APK and the operation being performed, this may be a warning or a fatal error.

The /etc/asound.conf file determines the behaviour of audio hardware present on the system. It can be used to select default bitrates, configure hardware options, and determine which sound card is the default/primary in a system with multiple sound cards present. This file is only significant on systems that have audio options installed.

Sections are blocks, with the name followed by curly braces ({ and }) where the options are specified for that section. See the external reference for more information.

For more information on configuring system audio hardware, refer to the official documentation at the ALSA Project Web site on the Internet.

The /etc/bash/bashrc file is sourced by the Bash shell when it starts up. This can set shell options and configure the shell environment for you. It is highly recommended to create your own scripts inside /etc/profile.d instead of modifying /etc/bash/bashrc, since it may change during upgrades to the Bash package. This file is only present on systems that have the Bash shell installed.

Shell script.

For more information, refer to the bash(1) manpage. If this manpage is not present on your system, it may be installed via the bash-doc package.

The /etc/conf.d/alsa file determines if volume levels are preserved across system restarts when the alsasound service is enabled. This file is only significant on systems that have audio options installed.

Shell script. Variables are in uppercase.

For more information, refer to the comments in the /etc/conf.d/alsa file.

The /etc/conf.d/bootmisc file determines certain characteristics about boot behaviour. It controls whether the /tmp directory is cleaned, and whether dmesg is written to /var/log/dmesg on boot. It also controls if the previous /var/log/dmesg is renamed to /var/log/dmesg.old for later comparison.

Shell script. Variables are in lowercase. Booleans may be set as YES or NO.

The /etc/conf.d/bootmisc file defines the following configuration variables:

The /etc/conf.d/devfs file determines if the system attempts to mount /dev during system initialisation. Most systems will not need this configuration modified.

Shell script. Variables are in lowercase. Booleans may be set as YES or NO.

The skip_mount_dev variable may be set to YES to prevent the system from automatically attempting to mount /dev during system initialisation. The default setting of the skip_mount_dev variable is NO.

The /etc/conf.d/dmesg file determines the behaviour of the dmesg kernel log buffer.

Shell script. Variables are in lowercase.

The dmesg_level controls the "console level", or the severity required for a message to be printed to the system console. The default value is 1, which corresponds to the emerg log level. This prevents all messages from being written to the console except kernel panics.

The /etc/conf.d/fsck file determines the behaviour of the fsck (file system check) command during system initialisation. It is important to note that the configuration in the /etc/conf.d/fsck does not control manual invocations of the fsck command.

Shell script. Variables are in lowercase. Booleans may be set as YES or NO.

The /etc/conf.d/fsck file defines the following configuration variables:

The /etc/conf.d/gettys file determines the parameters and behaviour of virtual terminals (VTs) and serial consoles on the system.

Shell script. Variables are mixed-case.

The /etc/conf.d/gettys file defines the variable GETTYS. The GETTYS variable controls the devices that the system will search for, on which to run VTs. Each device is separated by a space (" "). The default is "tty1 tty2 tty3 tty4 tty5 tty6 hvc0", which will start a VT on each virtual TTY 1-6, and also start a VT on hvc0 if it exists. The hvc0 device is present on most IBM servers, and also most Xen guests.

For every device specified in GETTYS, the following two variables can be used for further device configuration:

	Important
	Changes to this file will not take effect until the system is restarted.

The /etc/conf.d/modules file specifies additional kernel modules to load during system initialisation.

Shell script. Variables are in lowercase.

The /etc/conf.d/modules file allows you to specify additional kernel modules for the system to load during initialisation. This is typically unnecessary as the eudev system will automatically load any modules required for the correct functioning of your hardware. However, some advanced use cases may require the loading of additional kernel modules.

The /etc/conf.d/modules file defines the modules configuration variables. This is a space-delimited list of modules to load.

For each module specified, an additional variable, module_MODNAME_args, is defined, where MODNAME is the name of the module. The module_MODNAME_args variable controls the arguments passed to the module. Refer to the documentation for each module for a list of arguments it supports.

The /etc/conf.d/net file determines the configuration of the network adaptor(s) installed in the system.

Shell script style.

Refer to Chapter 5, Networking for information on configuring networks using the Adélie Linux system.

The /etc/conf.d/urandom file determines the path where the random number seed is stored when the system is shut down.

Shell script. Variables are in lowercase.

The /etc/conf.d/urandom file defines a single configuration variable, urandom_seed, which specifies the path in which to save the random number seed when the system is shut down. The default is /var/lib/misc/random-seed. This variable must point to a path that is on the root filesystem; if /var is a separate filesystem, you must configure this variable to use a different path.

The /etc/default/console-setup file determines the configuration of the system virtual terminals or consoles. Note that this does not include graphical terminals run inside X11 (such as Konsole or XFCE Terminal).

Shell script style. Variables are in uppercase.

For more information, consult the official manual page for console-setup(5). This manual page is available in the console-setup-doc package. If your computer has an Internet connection, you may also read it on the Web.

The /etc/default/keyboard file determines the configuration of the keyboard on the system virtual terminals or consoles. This file does not control the configuration of the keyboard inside X11 or a desktop environment (such as KDE or LXQt).

Shell script style. Variables are in uppercase.

The /etc/default/keyboard file is used by the console-setup package (when the console-setup service is enabled) to configure the keyboard model and layout in use on the system's virtual terminals. The most important variables in the /etc/default/keyboard file are the XKBMODEL variable, which controls the model of keyboard, and the XKBLAYOUT variable, which controls the layout of the keyboard.

In order to use additional keyboard layouts, you must install the console-keymaps package.

For more information, consult the official manual page for keyboard(5). This manual page is available in the console-setup-doc package. If your computer has an Internet connection, you may also read it on the Web.

The /etc/dracut.conf.d directory contains files that determine the configuration of dracut, the initial RAM disk generation system for the Adélie Linux system. The initial RAM disk is needed on some computers during system initialisation; tasks it may perform include enabling access to a disk, unlocking an encrypted partition, or establishing a network connection.

Shell script style. Variables are in lowercase.

For more information, consult the dracut.conf(5) manual page. This manual page is available in the dracut-doc package.

The /etc/fstab file determines the mount points of file systems on the hard disk(s) connected to a system. It may also control whether or not users may mount removable storage devices such as CD-ROM devices, and where they may mount them.

The syntax for /etc/fstab is columnar in nature. There may be any amount of whitespace between columns; the following two lines will be viewed identically to the system:

/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sda1       /boot       ext3        defaults    0   1

For more information, consult the fstab(5) manual page. This manual page is available in the util-linux-doc package.

The /etc/hostname file determines the host name of the system. This is used in system prompts, and for identification on a network.

The host name must appear as the only content of this file. Any other contents are invalid.

The /etc/hostname is read during system initialisation. The system host name is set to the contents of this file. If the /etc/hostname file is missing or corrupt, the system will retain the kernel's default host name — with the default Adélie Linux kernel, this is "adelie".

The /etc/inputrc file determines the behaviour of keyboard input and the system bell in programs that use the GNU readline library. The GNU readline library is not packaged for the Adélie Linux system; therefore, the only system packages that would use the configuration in this file are bash and gdb, which contain their own private copies of the GNU readline library.

The /etc/inputrc is declarative in nature; variables are set using the set command, and escape sequences are mapped to functions using the format: "<escape sequence>": function.

There are a few comments in the /etc/inputrc file. Since the GNU readline library is not packaged for the Adélie Linux system, it is not possible to read the manual page.

The /etc/issue file determines the message that will be displayed on virtual terminals and consoles before the login prompt.

Text file. Escape sequences are supported.

For more information, refer to the Issue Files section of the agetty(8) manual page. The agetty(8) manual page is available in the util-linux-doc package.

The /etc/localtime file determines the system's time zone. The system time zone is shown in date(1), file modification times, log files, and other functions. It is important to ensure this file is correct.

Binary time zone file. Please do not edit the file directly in an editor.

The tzdata package provides a number of time zone files in the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory. When configuring the system time zone, you should make a symbolic link from your time zone to /etc/localtime. Alternatively, if you are using a split /usr (not common), you may copy the file directly. For example, to set the system time zone to American Central Time, you would run ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime; or, if you are using a split /usr (not common), you would run cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime. For a full list of time zones available, run find /usr/share/zoneinfo.

The /etc/login.defs file determines the configuration for the shadow package, which is responsible for all logins and the su command on the Adélie Linux system.

Each line describes a configuration value; the name and value are separated by whitespace. Blank lines and comment lines are ignored. Comments may not appear anywhere other than the beginning of a line.

For more information, refer to the login.defs(5) manual page. The login.defs(5) manual page is available in the shadow-doc package.

The /etc/motd file determines the message that will be displayed to users when they log in to the system.

Plain text.

The entire contents of the /etc/motd file are displayed to a user when they log in to the system. No command substitution or escape sequences are recognised; the file is entirely plain text. The default login message provides pointers on where to find the documentation for the Adélie Linux system.

The /etc/profile.d directory contains files that determine the shell environment for all users on the system.

Shell scripts.

The /etc/profile script is sourced by most shells during interactive logins. This script enumerates all shell scripts present in /etc/profile.d and sources them. Adding an executable shell script to /etc/profile.d allows you to set environment variables or add shell functions for interactive use. Note that most shells will not source these files during non-interactive logins.

The /etc/rc.conf file determines the behaviour of the service manager, which is partially responsible for system initialisation.

Shell script. Variables are in lowercase. Booleans may be set as YES or NO.

The /etc/rc.conf file defines the following configuration variables:

Table 7.3. Configurable variables in /etc/rc.conf

Variable	Meaning	Default
rc_parallel	Determines whether the system should attempt to start multiple services at the same time. Danger This option may harm the stability of your system or render it inoperable. Take extreme caution before changing the default.	NO
rc_interactive	Determines whether the system should allow a user to hold the "I" key during system initialisation to choose which services to start.	NO
rc_shell	Determines the shell to spawn if the system fails to initialise correctly.	/bin/sh
rc_depend_strict	Determines whether all providers of a dependency are required to start before dependent services are started. For an example, refer to the section called “Advanced: Multiple interfaces”.	YES
rc_logger	Determines whether system initialisation activity is logged to disk for review by the system administrator.	YES
rc_log_path	Determines the path in which to write the system initialisation activity log, if rc_logger is set to YES.	/var/log/rc.log
rc_verbose	Determines if the service manager should output extra messages, which can be useful for debugging an issue with services.	NO
rc_nocolor	Determines if colourful output should be suppressed.	NO
unicode	Determines if the system terminal supports Unicode. Warning Disabling Unicode support may cause some applications to work improperly.	YES
rc_sys	Determines the system environment. This may be autodetected. Only set this option if autodetection does not work. Valid options are "" for a typical Adélie Linux system; "docker" for a Docker container; "lxc" for a LXC container; "openvz" for an OpenVZ container; "xen0" for a Xen domain 0 instance; and "xenU" for a Xen guest domain instance.
rc_tty_number	Determines how many TTYs the service manager should allow services to configure. This does not impact the number of TTYs actually allocated; refer to the section called “/etc/conf.d/gettys: System console configuration” for this option.	12
rc_controller_cgroups	Determines whether cgroups should be used for services. Refer to the kernel documentation on cgroups for more information.	NO

The /etc/resolv.conf file determines how names are resolved on the network. This includes the domain suffix that should be searched when the system searches for a host name on the network. This additionally includes the nameservers used to resolve names into IP addresses (typically via DNS).

Each line describes a configuration value; the name and value are separated by whitespace. Blank lines and comment lines are ignored.

For more information about configuring name resolution, refer to the section called “Configuring DNS resolution”.