6.4 Application Configuration

Typically, installed applications have their own configuration files, with their own syntax, etc. It is important that these files be kept separate from the base system, so that they may be easily located and managed by the package management tools.

Typically, these files are installed in /usr/local/etc. In the case where an application has a large number of configuration files, a subdirectory will be created to hold them.

Normally, when a port or package is installed, sample configuration files are also installed. These are usually identified with a .default suffix. If there are no existing configuration files for the application, they will be created by copying the .default files.

For example, consider the contents of the directory /usr/local/etc/apache:

-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   2184 May 20  1998 access.conf
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   2184 May 20  1998 access.conf.default
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   9555 May 20  1998 httpd.conf
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   9555 May 20  1998 httpd.conf.default
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  12205 May 20  1998 magic
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  12205 May 20  1998 magic.default
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   2700 May 20  1998 mime.types
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   2700 May 20  1998 mime.types.default
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   7980 May 20  1998 srm.conf
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   7933 May 20  1998 srm.conf.default

The filesize difference shows that only the srm.conf file has been changed. A later update of the Apache port would not overwrite this changed file.