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Profiles,
Nico Schottelius, 2005-06-04
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1. What are profiles?
2. How to use profiles?
3. How to configure profiles?
4. Some examples


1. What are profiles?

Profiles are different configurations for different scenarios.
This means you can use the 'home' profile to setup things
differently than at work, where you would use either
no profile (standard configuration) or the 'work' profile.


2. How to use profiles?

Simply pass 'cprofile:PROFILENAME' (like cprofile:home) to cinit.
How to pass argumenents to cinit? Under Linux the init-system
gets the kernel arguments (see linux.kernel.eats.arguments) as arguments.
So you can use

   kernel /usr/src/linux/vmlinuz cprofile:work (grub1,grub2)
   append="cprofile:work" (LILO,yaboot)

Other Unices should work like Linux, please consult your local
documentation.


3. How to configure profiles?

It's very simple: Normally cinit would call /etc/cinit/init as
primary service and solve all dependencies. If you pass
cprofile=wireless to it, cinit will start /etc/cinit/wireless as
primary service instead.

   [Note: /etc/cinit/yourprofile is the service that will be started.
    You need/should/must NOT create /etc/cinit/yourprofile/init!]

So the only thing you have to do is to create a service directory
below /etc/cinit with the name of the profile you want to use.

You can simply copy the init-dir and use it as a template:

   ei # cd /etc/cinit; rsync -a init yourprofile
   
   Standard cp will copy the linked files, not the links, that's why I use rsync
   You could also use tar:
   
   ei # cd /etc/cinit/init; tar c . | (mkdir ../yp; cd ../yp; tar x )

That's it!


4. Some examples

Here are some examples we found in #cLinux:

   profile name            what it does

   musibox                 only start mp3blaster
   terminal                start only minicom, which opens the serial line
   net-terminal            start a respawning shell script, which starts
                           ssh to the selected host
   video                   start X+mplayer, which plays the dvd/cdrom
   wireless                What to start when beeing in an unknown wlan
   home/work               selected services (nfs, ip, ...) for home or work