The principal location for system configuration information
is /etc/rc.conf. This file contains
a wide range of configuration information and it is read at
system startup to configure the system. It provides the
configuration information for the rc*
files.
The entries in /etc/rc.conf override
the default settings in
/etc/defaults/rc.conf. The file containing
the default settings should not be edited. Instead, all
system-specific changes should be made to
/etc/rc.conf.
A number of strategies may be applied in clustered
applications to separate site-wide configuration from
system-specific configuration in order to keep administration
overhead down. The recommended approach is to place
system-specific configuration into
/etc/rc.conf.local. For
example:
/etc/rc.conf:
/etc/rc.conf.local:
rc.conf can then be
distributed to every system using rsync or a
similar program, while rc.conf.local
remains unique.
Upgrading the system using sysinstall(8) or
make world will not overwrite
rc.conf, so system configuration
information will not be lost.
The /etc/rc.conf configuration file
is parsed by sh(1). This allows system operators to
add a certain amount of logic to this file, which may help to
create very complex configuration scenarios. Refer to
rc.conf(5) for further information on this topic.
This, and other documents, can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/
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documentation before
contacting <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.