log loading of configuration files [was Re: Accounting to MySQL not working]

[Josip Rodin]

On Tue, Jun 01, 2010 at 02:19:31PM +0200, joy wrote:
> On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 10:42:06AM +0200, Alan DeKok wrote:
> >   Even Apache reads the entire directory:
> > 
> > ...
> > # Include the virtual host configurations:
> > Include /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/
> > ...
> > 
> >   So what's the solution?  Why isn't this a problem for Apache, and is a
> > problem here?
> 
> It stands to reason that they have their own share of people making these
> mistakes, we just don't hear about it here. :)

It occurs to me that it would be a good idea to add an option that would
allow users to log the entire initial configuration parsing on startup to
the main log file, IOW log that part even if the server did not run with -X.
When they run it with -X, they'll see the packets as they come in and that's
good for the debugging of the per-request logic, but a lot of this initial
text will scroll down the screen as if everything in it is all right, and
they might miss important information in it.

This option could default to on in the default config files, for the sake of
newbies. Since server (re)starts aren't common, let alone a per-packet event
(hopefully! :), this would not be a deviation from the practice of keeping
the logs quiet by default. And the advanced users would simply keep their
old configs and/or turn the new option off.

On related note, OpenLDAP provides loglevel 'config' for a very similar
functionality, it logs the parsing of slapd.conf on start.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.