As much as there is often a lot discussion about configuration items inside the SMF repository (like the hostname), it brings an important advantage: It introduces the concept of dependencies to configuration changes. What services have be restarted when i change a configuration item. Do you remember all the services that are dependent on the hostname and need a restart after changing it? SMF solves this by putting the information about dependencies into it configuration. You define it with the manifests.
However, as much configuration you may put into SMF, most applications still insists to get it's configuration inside the traditional configuration files, like the resolv.conf for the resolver or the puppet.conf for Puppet. So you need a way to take the information out of the SMF repository and generate a config file with it. In the past the way to do so, was some scripting inside the start method that generated the config file before the service started.
Solaris 11.2 offers a new feature in this area. It introduces a generic method to enable you to create config files from SMF properties. It's called SMF stencils.
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