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SuSE has - starting SuSE 8.0 - incorporated a system for maintaining (and aktivating) different configurations of a system. This is really interesting for people with mobile computers in different situations (like swapping between different networks).
The system is "SCPM".
I've installed SuSE9.0 and aktivated and examined scpm a bit and these are (some) of my musings:
  1. Situation
    1. I'm having SuSE 9.0 Pro installed
    2. SCPM has been aktivated and 3 different profiles were created. This resulted in two profiles with network configuration (and device) and one without.
    3. most changes (if not all) were applied using yast modules. and in SCPM, the "network" profile is indicated as "to be controlled"
  2. SUGGESTIONS
    1. Order of services
      I discovered that if different services have to be launched, these are started sequentially (in order of the alphabetical list of groups).
      This could and SHOULD - in my opinion be changed so that the services are launched in the order indicated by the runlevel configuration /etc/init.d/rcd
      Problems arise if e.g. dhcp or autofs services are launched prior to launching the network or even the nis configuration (since the configuration of dhcp or autofs might be dependent of a running network or even a correct yphost resolution.
    2. network
      it will/could be usefull to include /etc/modules.conf and /etc/modules.conf.local into the network package since when you remove a network device in a configuration, the module-line corresponding to it (alias eth0 is removed from /etc/modules.conf (by yast), causing later on the network not to be activated anymore.
      Possible other files that might be considered for inclusion are:
      • /etc/HOSTNAME (in different networks a host might have another name)
      • /etc/nsswitch and /etc/host.conf (when one uses nis, dns or other or not, these files could change)
      • one might even consider /etc/passwd (and related /etc/shadow*, ... as a candidate for monitoring...
    3. nis
      if you need nis to be checked, it could be you have different configurations for nis (different networks). Since the domainname is configured in /etc/defaultdomain, It's probably obligatory for good switching to have this file monitored...
    4. new* boot
      • file: /etc/inittab (if you want to boot init3 or init5 in different situations, or have serial connected terminal a.s.o.)
      • file: /etc/fstab (like with different external devices... [disk/dvdrom])
    5. new* samba
      A bit surprised was I when I discovered there's no monitor provided for samba, while in different networks this _will_ change (or so I believe), and even you could want in some networks no samba at all... (e.g. on direct-Internet connection).
      suggested monitors for:
      • service: smb
      • file: /etc/smaba/smb.conf
      • file: /etc/samba/smbusers
      • file: /ets/samba/smbpasswd
      • file: /etc/sysconfig/samba
    6. inetd
      • file: /etc/hosts.allow
      • file: /etc/hosts.deny
    7. xf86
      service: xdm
  3. Problems
    I had some problems with the scpm that it wouldn't switch to another configuration anymore. Everytime I wanted to switch a profile, the scpm system "crashed" when restarting the network module, and so the scpm was disabled. It was not possible anymore to switch to another profile, though the active profile seemed to work fine.
    After much looking around and examining and complaining with suse (that didn't respond), I discovered that my network-configuration had some hosts in the /etc/hosts file which contain underscore ("_"). Apparently this character is not allowed, but when inserting these names in /etc/hosts through YaST, no problem is reported... The relaunch of "network" by SCPM however refuses this (without stating what the problem is).