bionic (7) elektra-bootstrapping.7.gz

NAME

       elektra-bootstrapping - default backend

       One  important  aspect  of  a configuration library is the out-of-the-box experience. How does the system
       work before  anything  is  configured?  The  optimal  situation  is  that  everything  works  fully,  and
       applications,  that  just  want  to  load  and  store  configuration,  do  not  see  any  difference in a
       well-configured, fine-tuned system.

       To support that experience, a so-called default backend is responsible  in  the  case  that  nothing  was
       configured  so  far.  It must have a storage that is able to store full Elektra semantics including every
       type and arbitrary metadata. To avoid reimplementation of storage plugins, for default storage plugins  a
       resolver plugin additionally takes care of the inevitable portability issues.

       The  default  backend is guaranteed to stay mounted at system/elektra where the configuration for Elektra
       itself is stored. After mounting all backends, Elektra checks if  system/elektra  still  resides  at  the
       default backend. If not, it will be mounted there.

       To  summarise,  this approach delivers a good out-of-the-box experience capable of storing configuration.
       For special use cases, applications and administrators can mount specific backends  anywhere  except  at,
       and below, system/elektra. On kdbOpen(), the system bootstraps itself starting with the default backend.

       The  default  backend  consists  of  a  default  storage  plugin and default resolver plugin. The default
       resolver has no specific requirements, but the default storage plugin must be able to handle full Elektra
       semantics.  The  backend  is  not  mounted  anywhere  in particular, so any keys can be stored in it. The
       implementation of the core guarantees that user and system keys always stay separated.

                                                    July 2017                           ELEKTRA-BOOTSTRAPPING(7)