[dozzie]

> I'm not sure why you think nginx_enable='YES' is fundamentally less opaque than an nginx.service file. Both are parsed by another application.

My guess: because the "another application" that parses nginx_enable=YES is a (rc) shell script instead of an ELF blob, so you can track its execution.

[JdeBP]

That is not actually true. It is of course parsed by a shell, not by a shell script, which is indeed an "ELF blob".

Moreover, that shell is, on some operating systems, only one of the parsers. OpenBSD, for example, introduced a rule a few versions ago that rc.conf is not shell script. It is a set of key=value assignments that can be written and read by other programs too, not just by a full shell parser and not requiring a shell script parser.

One such program is rcctl. Another is FreeBSD's sysrc.

[andrewshadura]

But do you need to?

[dozzie]

Yes, when something goes awry with the initscripts system. And systemd is not exactly famous for its transparency of execution and stability of options' behaviour.