Handling of duplicates in clients.conf

[Alan DeKok]

Garber, Neal wrote:
> I agree with you Alan that the server shouldn't just silently "work"
> with configuration errors.  In the past, I've seen configuration errors
> preclude the server from starting.  Is that still the case? 

  Yes.

> If so, then
> given the seriousness of the error, as described in your response below,
> perhaps the server should fail to start in this case as well.

  Huh?  It does.

>>   No.  Clients that are exact duplicates can be safely ignored.
> Clients
>> that are "similar" but not the same are conflicts.  You may have
>> policies, logging, etc. that depend on the fields that are different.
>> Which one is chosen?  One at random?
>>
>>   Do you really want the server to work *accidentally*?  And one day,
>> when something else changes, the server suddenly picks the *other*
>> client definition, and all of your policies, logs, etc. are different?
> 
> I agree with you that conflicts are bad.  I wasn't trying to suggest
> otherwise.  However, the current approach (even in 2.1.4) displays 2
> error messages buried in the middle of hundreds of other startup
> messages.

  Please show an example.  Duplicates are WARNINGs.  Errors cause the
server to not start.

  Alan DeKok.