Elektra Initiative

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The Elektra Initiative provides an alternative back-end for text configuration files for the Linux operating system.

Instead of each program having its own text configuration files, with a variety of formats, Elektra tries to provide a universal, hierarchical, fast and consistent namespace and infrastructure to access configuration parameters through a key-value pair mechanism inspired by the Windows Registry. This way any software can read/save its configuration/state using a consistent API.

Being a common infrastructure, it also lets other applications be aware of this application configurations, leveraging easy software integration.

It is designed to be lightweight, with no dependencies, ready to be used also by early boot stage programs.

Using Elektra, configuration file's syntax and handling will not be a rework for each software.

Elektra lets system administrators control security in a more fine grained manner. With the current flat file paradigm it is impossible to control permissions and access times on each of the /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow atoms. Elektra lets you do that because each information atom stored in it (key) has a unique name (key name) and access properties.

The first name for the Elektra Initiative was the Linux Registry Project, which caused many flame wars around the Open Source community mailing lists and sites due to its similarity with the hated Windows registry.

The mains concepts, documentation, architecture and implementation of the Elektra Initiative was created by Avi Alkalay. Today the projects enjoys a set of contributors around the world that can be found in the project mailing list.