Unix and Linux Stack Exchange
Unix and Linux Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [configuration]

The action of modifying a program's behavior, generally by modifying a text file.

How to configure a program

Traditionally, there are 3 ways of configuring the behavior of a program:

  1. System wide configuration files
  2. User specific configuration files
  3. Compiling options

A few conventions about configuration files:

  • Configuration is stored in text files (as opposed to binaries or anything similar to the Windows registry).
  • System wide configuration files are located in /etc.
  • User specific configuration files are located in the user's home directory.
  • Configuration files have names ending with the suffix rc. Example: /etc/vimrc.
  • User specific configuration files are hidden by prefixing them with a dot (.). Example: ~/.bashrc.
  • Compiling options are only available at compile time and cannot be changed afterwards. On systems using binary package management, the package maintainer is in charge of selecting the appropriate options.

Further Reading

1564 questions
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Language agnostic configuration file format

Many projects these days use more than one programming / scripting language, and in standard DRY tradition these should not have separate configuration files if they need the same information. After a small survey in /etc, it looks like a lot of…
l0b0
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4 answers

Reversing the direction of a trackball

For some reason, I want to use a trackball Logitech (aka Logicool) Marble Mouse (aka Trackman Marble) upside down. Is there a way to reverse the left and right rolling and up and bottom rolling respectively software-wise, without modifying the…
sawa
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Kconfig - "select" a choice

I'm using the Linux kernel's configuration tool Kconfig to manage the configuration of my own project. (Please could someone with sufficient rep add "Kconfig" tag or whatever tag would be more appropriate). I didn't tag as "linux" or as "kernel"…
Mark K Cowan
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Are numbers necessary for some config/rule file names?

In the tutorials/manuals, I often see numbers like this. Is it necessary? If so, specific numbers necessary? To make the setting persistent across reboot, one can use a udev…
Damn Vegetables
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Screen dims after xrandr

I have an old P3 laptop with an 800x600 screen on which I've installed WattOS 7.5. I know it is now on 10 but 7.5 is the latest one that will fit on a CD. The later ones will only fit on DVD. This is an old machine - it only has a CD reader, it…
cup
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How do I find the config files for any application

I ran into this problem multiple times now. You have to log into a server you don't know and have to find where an application is installed and where its config files are. I know that most application configs are in /etc/... e.g.…
Vulkanodox
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.conf changes have no effect on reboot in WSL?

I've tried making some changes in various .conf files in my Ubuntu WSL2 install, such as editing /etc/sysctl.conf with nano, adding vm.max_map_count=262144 at the end of it, saving, then rebooting Windows, and finally checking if vm.max_map_count…
J. Scott Elblein
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Should the last line in a configuration file have a newline after it?

I sometimes whether I should put a newline after the last line in a configuration file, especially if it is a one-line configuration file, like the hostname file. Does it not matter, or is there a rule?
Tyler Durden
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How to use option from manual for netflow?

I want to filter the netflow records by engine_id, I have tried nfdump -r engine_id 10 and nfdump -r -s engine_id 10 But, it is not working. What do I do wrong? Here you find the manual for nfdump.
Veerendra K
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What config file do I need to edit to use my newly-installed parallel port PCI card

I installed new daughter cards for a parallel port and a telephone modem on the PCI bus of my computer. The lspci command reveals that the system sees the cards but I don't know which config file I need to edit to use these new cards. I've searched…
Stephen Daddona
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1 answer

How to refer to Unsafe Browser in Tails OS using environment variable in .bashrc

I need to set a SageMath environment variable in .bashrc to use the Unsafe Browser to connect to localhost:8080 and use Sage's notebook interface (as far as I can tell, the Tor Browser can't view localhost). The Sage example of setting the default…
user321521
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Selectively unbinding SPIDEV from certain chip-selects

I'm trying to unbind SPIDEV from a specific chip-select so I can bind a specific driver to a device on that chip-select instead (without rmmod'ing SPIDEV completely). I have a board with an AM335X processor, booting a mainline kernel (+Renesas DT…
Mark K Cowan
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Invalid libtool wrapper script when make installing Apache

After I configure Apache with standard configurations, after which I do make which works. I do make install and I get this error: libtool: install: invalid libtool wrapper script `htpasswd ' libtool: install: invalid libtool wrapper ; script…
Display
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Looking for a complete TUI script for configuring date and networking of CentOS 5

I'm looking for a script that allows complete configuration of a CentOS 5 system via TUI (no GUI, X, etc.). I found system-config-network-tui but other than the fact it looks unprofessional (typos, bugs, etc.) I actually would like to find a script…
Yon
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How to replicate basic configuration tasks?

(This might be off-topic and/or not answerable, but I want to ask anyway.) Recently, I am managing a lot of VPS server with Linux for my personal and professional projects. However, I am kind of tired by the repetitive tasks. Let's say I have to do…
Karel Bílek
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