[pulseaudio-discuss] Improvements related to configuration

[Arun Raghavan]

On Mon, 2013-03-25 at 16:35 +0200, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
[...]
> > > === Improvements Related to Configuration ===
> > >
> > > '''Problem statement:''' There are a couple of separate problems:
> > >   * If setting some option in a configuration file doesn't seem to have
> > > any effect, chances are that it's being overridden in some other file,
> > > but which file? It's slightly tedious to manually look in several
> > > directories and check the file contents. It's even more cumbersome when
> > > debugging a problem remotely, when it's necessary to explain every step
> > > that needs to be performed.

I think this would be a _lot_ of complexity for limited gains.

> > >   * Changing a configuration file requires restarting the server before
> > > the change takes effect.
> > >
> > > '''Suggested solution:'''
> > >   * When reading configuration files, the daemon should store the origin
> > > file of each option separately. This information should then be made
> > > possible to query by clients. Then, pactl (a command-line utility for
> > > interacting with the server) should be extended to provide a command
> > > that prints the configuration of the running server, and also the origin
> > > file of each option. This functionality would probably apply only to the
> > > "ini-style" configuration files. Those cover most of the !PulseAudio
> > > configuration, with the notable exception of the startup script. It
> > > might be useful to also record the loaded startup script(s) so that the
> > > startup sequence can be queried for debug purposes.
> > >   * Sending SIGHUP to the server process should cause it to reload its
> > > configuration. This too would probably apply only to the "ini-style"
> > > configuration files, not to the startup script. It's probably not
> > > possible to make all configuration options changeable at run-time, but
> > > that's OK.
> > 
> > Hmm. This sounds like a lot of complexity for little gain. And potential 
> > bugs only affecting those who are using this not-so-widely-used feature, 
> > I assume.
> 
> Are you referring to the second point only, or both points?
> 
> I don't think the second point is for little gain. Sure, just reloading
> the configuration on SIGHUP (or whatever mechanism) isn't that
> interesting in itself, but runtime-changeable configuration is required
> anyway in order to support configuration GUIs. I considered adding a
> client API for writing configuration options to the project idea too,
> but there seemed to be enough stuff in the idea already, and having such
> an API has some problems (mentioned in this[1] message) for which we
> would need to agree on a solution first.

I think this is better solved by using a real configuration system that
can notify you of configuration changes.

If we can discuss and hammer out details well before the start, this
could make a pretty good project.

-- Arun