Abstract: The invention provides for managing information for multiple devices. Each of a set of devices retrieves information from a sequence of servers. A device when starting up reads a list of file names, reads information from each file in sequence, and resolves conflicts among files to present a consistent configuration on each restart of each device. A file includes a sequence of <name, value> pairs. In those cases when two variables have the same name, an operator associated with the second pair indicates whether to overwrite the first value or to edit the first value, such as by appending the second value. One of the pairs indicates the list of file names itself. When the list of file names is changed, the device for which the change is made re-reads the sequence of files and repeats its determination of the pairs, until the list of file names is stabilized.