Im trying to learn how to read and manage linux config files.

Anyone know of any good tutorial and information sites?

Which distribution?

Which configuration files?

Distributions as a whole are simply collection of applications and the linux kernel. Configuration files vary wildly among each distribution and each version there of.

To manage most configs you simply need to be able to parse a text file.

Some applications are a little more complicated and use various others means to store data, but it would be difficult to go into all of them.

What I've seen from most utilities that manage multiple configuration files. They tend to store data in a central location and rewrite the config file in question on the fly. (Or lack of storage, simply recreate the configuration file based on user input).

Thanks for the post cylix. At the moment im running fedora core 3 and vector soho. Let me ask you this.....am I right in assuming that each distro tends to use its own programming languages for these files?

Not necessarily.


the config files are not really a programming language but rather a collection of settings that the program can understand.



some have similarities to C programming like bash scripts.

Config files are mostly just plain text files, though some are XML.

Just go to /etc and have a look at them. (Thats where most are kept)