Finit v4.8

Changes

• Avoid remounting already mounted /run and /tmp directories. This extends the existing support for detecting mounted directories to include complex mount hierarchies are in use, overlayfs and tmpfs mounts. Feature by Mathias Thore, Atlas Copco
• getty: trigger /etc/issue compat mode for Alpine Linux
• tmpfiles.d: skip x11.conf unless X11 common plugin is enabled
• tmpfiles.d: ignore x/X command, nos support for cleanup at runtime
• Drop debug mode -D from udevd in hotplug.conf.in, allow the user to set this in /etc/default/udevd instead
• Certain initctl APIs at bootstrap are not supported, update warning log to include command (number) for troubleshooting, issue #398
• Add support for hwrng to urandom plugin and check for empty seed
• Add runparts -b (batch mode) support, disables escape sequences
• New configure --without-rc-local, disables /etc/rc.local support
• New configure --disable-cgroup option, disables cgroup v2 detection
• initctl show [email protected] now shows how an enabled template service has been evaluated by Finit, issue #411
• Extend initctl timeout connecting and waiting for Finit reply. The previous 2 + 2 second poll timeout has proved to be too short on more complex systems. Now a 15 + 15 second timeout is applied which should be more resistant to temporary overload scenarios, issue #407

Fixes

• Fix #397: system shutdown/reboot can block on console input if action is started remotely (ssh). Caused by legact TTY screen size probing, removed from both bootstrap and shutdown/reboot
• Fix #400: both HOOK_MOUNT_ERROR and sulogin() fail to trigger on either mount or fsck errors. Problem caused by unresolved status from pipe, calling pclose() without extracting exit status
• Fix #402: initctl touch does not respect -n (no error) flag
• Fix #403: initctl touch does not support template services
• Fix #404: possible undefined behavior when --with-fstab=no is set
• Fix #405: @console getty does not work with tty0 ttyS0
• Fix #409: prevent tmpfiles from following symlinks for L+ and R, otherwise symlink targets would also be removed. Found and fixed by Mathias Thore and Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Fix #414: Frr Zebra immediately restarts on initctl stop zebra. The fix likely works for all Frr/Quagga services due to the way they create and delete their pid file
• Cosmetic issue with [ OK ] messages being printed out of order at shutdown/reboot. Caused by nested calls to service_stop()
• Cosmetic issue with duplicate "Restoring RTC" message at bootstrap

Finit v4.7

Changes

• Silence "not available" messages for run/task/service with nowarn
• Update docs, cgroup.root workaround for SCHED_RR tasks
• Drop runlevels 0 and 6 from keventd, not needed at reboot/poweroff
• Mount /dev/shm with mode 1777 (sticky bit)
• Mount /dev/mqueue if available, inspiration from Alpine Linux
• Update Alpine Linux installer and configuration files, tested on
  Alpine v3.19, some assembly still required

Fixes

• Fix confusing warning message when tmpfiles.d fails to install symlink
• Fix tmpfiles.d legacy /run/lock/subsys, ordering
• Add missing /var/tmp and /var/lock -> /run/lock (tmpfiles.d)
• Fix #388: log redirection broken unless Finit runs in debug mode.
  Found and fixed by Ryan Rorison
• Fix #389: must libc requires libgen.h for basename() function.
  Reported and worked around with new basenm() function by Stargirl
• Fix #392: service/foo/ready condition reasserted on pidfile removal

Finit v4.6

Changes

• Add support for service notify:pid and readiness none global
  option to change how Finit expects readiness notification, issue #386

Fixes

• Fix #383: dbus and runparts regression in Finit v4.5. The configure
  script must expand FINIT_RUNPATH_ before defining it in config.h
• Fix #384: service environment variables drop everything but the first
  argument, e.g., VAR="foo bar qux" drops everything but foo
• Fix #385: internal conditions, e.g., <int/bootstrap> turn into flux
  when leaving bootstrap, causing depending services to stop
• Fix #387: global environment variables declared with set VAR=NAME do
  not drop leading set , causing 'set VAR'='NAME' in env.
• Sanity check environment variables, for services and globally. Ensure
  the variable name (key) does not contain spaces, or a leading set

Finit v4.5

Changes

• Refactor runparts and /etc/rc.local to no longer block the main loop, allowing initctl calls to interact with Finit. Issue #356
• Refactor the run stanza to no longer block the main loop, issue #362
• Allow sulogin with a user different from root, issue #357
• Allow disabling invocation of rescue mode from kernel command line
• Add initctl -f to force-skip asking Finit for existing services when creating new services during bootstrap, e.g. /etc/rc.local
• initctl runlevel now returns N S instead of N 10 in bootstrap
• initctl runlevel N during bootstrap is now allowed. It changes the next runlevel to go to when bootstrap has completed. Effectively overriding the runlevel N statement in /etc/finit.conf
• Improved logging on failure to execvp() a run/task/service, now with errno, e.g., "No such file or directory" when the command is missing from $PATH
• Add Bash completion support for initctl, configurable, issue #360
• Handle absolute path to initctl [enable|disable], not supported
• Update finit.conf(5) man page with the recommended directory hierarchy in /etc/finit.d/
• The runparts code has been split into /libexec/finit/runparts
• The runparts command now takes two options: sysv and progress. The former ensures only SNNfoo and KNNfoo scripts are run.
• Add SysV Init Compatibility section to documentation
• Increased MAX path for commands, and arguments: 64 -> 256
• The bundled watchdog daemon no longer tries to log at startup, because syslog is not available yet, any startup message leak to console
• Extend if: option with runtime evaluation of conditions. E.g., start a task only if:<run/foo/failure> (here the run task 'foo' failed)
• Document new if:, conflict:, nowarn options for run/task/service first introduced in v4.4
• Failure to open fstab should log to console, not just log to /dev/kmsg
• Rename /lib/finit/system/*.conf, added numbered prefix to ensure proper execution order, e.g., udevd should always run first
• Plugins and bundled services: dbus, keventd, watchdogd, and runparts, are now loaded after all services in /lib/finit/system/. A new runtime-only path (for inspection) in /run/finit/system/ is used
• Redirect log* output to console when finit.debug is enabled
• Assert <int/container> condition if we detect running in container
• Add support for mdev's netlink daemon mode, issue #367
• Add support for mdevd in 10-hotplug.conf, preferred over plain mdev
• Disable modprobe plugin by default, udevd and mdev/mdevd loads modules
• Update documentation for run/task shell limitations, issue #376
• Update documentation regarding automount of /run and /tmp
• Update plugin documentation, add section about limited tmpfiles.d(5) support
• Skip registering service when if:!name matches a known service. This allows conditional loading of alternative services, e.g. if udevd is already loaded we do not need mdevd
• Drop doc/bootstrap.md, inaccurate and confusing to users

Fixes

• Fix #227: believed to have been fixed in v4.3, the root cause was actually that Finit was waiting for a process that was no longer in the system. The fix is to ask the kernel on process-stop-timeout and replay the lost PID so that Finit can continue with reboot/shutdown

• Fix #358: fix inotify events for /etc/finit.conf, improved log messages and error handling

• Fix #361: cgroup move fail if run/task/services start as non-root. Regression in the v4.4 release cycle while adding support for the pre:/post:/ready: scripts. Now the latter scripts also properly run in their correct cgroup

• Fix #366: document fsck.* kernel command line options and simplify the configure flags --enable-fsckfix and --enable-fastboot to only adjust the default values for the fsck.* options.

• Fix #371: swap load order of /lib/finit/system/* vs /etc/finit.d/*
  We must run 10-hotplug.conf first to ensure devices and modules are up and loaded before the user's run/task/services are called. The order at bootstrap is now saved in /run/finit/conf.order for inspection, /run/finit/exec.order shows the start order of each process

• Fix #372: lost udevadm calls due to overloading

• Adjust final udevadm settle timeout: 5 -> 30 sec

• Fixed dbus plugin, the function that located <pidfile> ... in the dbus/system.conf caused spurious line breaks which led to the service not being loaded properly

• The runparts executor now skips backup files (foo~)

• The runparts stanza now properly appends start to scripts that start with S[0-9]+. This has been broken for a very long time.

• Fix #377: expand service env:file variables, allow constructs like:

    RUNDIR=/var/run/somesvc
    DAEMON_ARGS=--workdir $RUNDIR --other-args...
  

• Fix #378: warn on console if run/task times out during bootstrap

• Fix #378: add run/task support for <!> to allow transition from bootstrap to multi-user runlevel even though task has not run yet.

• Fix #382: do not clear <service/foo/STATE> conditions on reload.
  Introduced back in v4.3-rc2, 82cc10b, the support for automatic service conditions have had a weird and unintended behavior. Any change in state (see doc/svc-machine.png) caused Finit to clear out all previously acquired service conditions.

  However, when moving between RUNNING and PAUSED states, a service should not have its conditions cleared. The PAUSED state, seen also by all conditions moving to FLUX, is only temporary while an initctl reload is processed. If a service has no changes to be applied it will move back to RUNNING.

  Also, we cannot clear the service conditions because other run/task or services may depend on it and clearing them would cause Finit to SIGTERM these processes (since they are no longer eligible to run).

Finit v4.5-rc5

Changes

• Refactor runparts and /etc/rc.local to no longer block the main
  loop, allowing initctl calls to interact with Finit. Issue #356
• Refactor the run stanza to no longer block the main loop, issue #362
• Allow sulogin with a user different from root, issue #357
• Allow disabling invocation of rescue mode from kernel command line
• Add initctl -f to force-skip asking Finit for existing services
  when creating new services during bootstrap, e.g. /etc/rc.local
• initctl runlevel now returns N S instead of N 10 in bootstrap
• initctl runlevel N during bootstrap is now allowed. It changes
  the next runlevel to go to when bootstrap has completed. Effectively
  overriding the runlevel N statement in /etc/finit.conf
• Improved logging on failure to execvp() a run/task/service, now
  with errno, e.g., "No such file or directory" when the command
  is missing from $PATH
• Add support for Bash completion to initctl, issue #360
• Handle absolute path to initctl [enable|disable], not supported
• Update finit.conf(5) man page with the recommended directory
  hierarchy in /etc/finit.d/
• The runparts code has been split into /libexec/finit/runparts
• The runparts command now takes two options: sysv and progress.
  The former ensures only SNNfoo and KNNfoo scripts are run.
• Add SysV Init Compatibility section to documentation
• Increased MAX path for commands, and arguments: 64 -> 256
• The bundled watchdog daemon no longer tries to log at startup, because
  syslog is not available yet, any startup message leak to console
• Extend if: option with runtime evaluation of conditions. E.g., start
  a task only if:<run/foo/failure> (here the run task 'foo' failed)
• Document new if:, conflict:, nowarn options for run/task/service
  first introduced in v4.4
• Failure to open fstab should log to console, not just log to /dev/kmsg
• Rename /lib/finit/system/*.conf, added numbered prefix to ensure
  proper execution order, e.g., udevd should always run first
• Plugins and bundled services: dbus, keventd, watchdogd, and runparts,
  are now loaded after all services in /lib/finit/system/. A new
  runtime-only path (for inspection) in /run/finit/system/ is used

Fixes

• Fix #227: believed to have been fixed in v4.3, the root cause was
  actually that Finit was waiting for a process that was no longer in
  the system. The fix is to ask the kernel on process-stop-timeout and
  replay the lost PID so that Finit can continue with reboot/shutdown
• Fix #358: fix inotify events for /etc/finit.conf, improved log
  messages and error handling
• Fix #361: cgroup move fail if run/task/services start as non-root.
  Regression in the v4.4 release cycle while adding support for the
  pre:/post:/ready: scripts. Now the latter scripts also properly run
  in their correct cgroup
• Fix #366: document fsck.* kernel command line options and simplify
  the configure flags --enable-fsckfix and --enable-fastboot to
  only adjust the default values for the fsck.* options.
• Fix #371: swap load order of /lib/finit/system/* vs /etc/finit.d/*
  We must run 10-hotplug.conf first to ensure devices and modules are
  up and loaded before the user's run/task/services are called. The order
  at bootstrap is now saved in /run/finit/conf.order for inspection,
  /run/finit/exec.order shows the start order of each process
• Fix #372: lost udevadm calls due to overloading
• Fixed dbus plugin, the function that located <pidfile> ... in the
  dbus/system.conf caused spurious line breaks which led to the
  service not being loaded properly
• The runparts executor now skips backup files (foo~)
• The runparts stanza now properly appends start to scripts that
  start with S[0-9]+. This has been broken for a very long time.

Finit v4.5-rc4

Changes

• Refactor runparts and /etc/rc.local to no longer block the main
  loop, allowing initctl calls to interact with Finit. Issue #356
• Refactor the run stanza to no longer block the main loop, issue #362
• Allow sulogin with a user different from root, issue #357
• Allow disabling invocation of rescue mode from kernel command line
• Add initctl -f to force-skip asking Finit for existing services
  when creating new services during bootstrap, e.g. /etc/rc.local
• initctl runlevel now returns N S instead of N 10 in bootstrap
• initctl runlevel N during bootstrap is now allowed. It changes
  the next runlevel to go to when bootstrap has completed. Effectively
  overriding the runlevel N statement in /etc/finit.conf
• Improved logging on failure to execvp() a run/task/service, now
  with errno, e.g., "No such file or directory" when the command
  is missing from $PATH
• Add support for Bash completion to initctl, issue #360
• Handle absolute path to initctl [enable|disable], not supported
• Update finit.conf(5) man page with the recommended directory
  hierarchy in /etc/finit.d/
• The runparts code has been split into /libexec/finit/runparts
• The runparts command now takes two options: sysv and progress.
  The former ensures only SNNfoo and KNNfoo scripts are run.
• Add SysV Init Compatibility section to documentation
• Increased MAX path for commands, and arguments: 64 -> 256
• The bundled watchdog daemon no longer tries to log at startup, because
  syslog is not available yet, any startup message leak to console
• Extend if: option with runtime evaluation of conditions. E.g., start
  a task only if:<run/foo/failure> (here the run task 'foo' failed)
• Document new if:, conflict:, nowarn options for run/task/service
  first introduced in v4.4

Fixes

• Fix #227: believed to have been fixed in v4.3, the root cause was
  actually that Finit was waiting for a process that was no longer in
  the system. The fix is to ask the kernel on process-stop-timeout and
  replay the lost PID so that Finit can continue with reboot/shutdown
• Fix #358: fix inotify events for /etc/finit.conf, improved log
  messages and error handling
• Fix #361: cgroup move fail if run/task/services start as non-root.
  Regression in the v4.4 release cycle while adding support for the
  pre:/post:/ready: scripts. Now the latter scripts also properly run
  in their correct cgroup
• Fix #366: document fsck.* kernel command line options and simplify
  the configure flags --enable-fsckfix and --enable-fastboot to
  only adjust the default values for the fsck.* options.
• The runparts executor now skips backup files (foo~)
• The runparts stanza now properly appends start to scripts that
  start with S[0-9]+. This has been broken for a very long time.

Finit v4.5-rc3

Changes

• Refactor runparts and /etc/rc.local to no longer block the main
  loop, allowing initctl calls to interact with Finit. Issue #356
• Refactor the run stanza to no longer block the main loop, issue #362
• Allow sulogin with a user different from root, issue #357
• Allow disabling invocation of rescue mode from kernel command line
• Add initctl -f to force-skip asking Finit for existing services
  when creating new services during bootstrap, e.g. /etc/rc.local
• initctl runlevel now returns N S instead of N 10 in bootstrap
• Improved logging on failure to execvp() a run/task/service, now
  with errno, e.g., "No such file or directory" when the command
  is missing from $PATH
• Add support for Bash completion to initctl, issue #360
• Handle absolute path to initctl [enable|disable], not supported
• Update finit.conf(5) man page with the recommended directory
  hierarchy in /etc/finit.d/
• The runparts code has been split into /libexec/finit/runparts
• The runparts command now takes two options: sysv and progress.
  The former ensures only SNNfoo and KNNfoo scripts are run.
• Add SysV Init Compatibility section to documentation
• Increased MAX path for commands, and arguments: 64 -> 256
• The bundled watchdog daemon no longer tries to log at startup, because
  syslog is not available yet, any startup message leak to console

Fixes

• Fix #227: believed to have been fixed in v4.3, the root cause was
  actually that Finit was waiting for a process that was no longer in
  the system. The fix is to ask the kernel on process-stop-timeout and
  replay the lost PID so that Finit can continue with reboot/shutdown
• Fix #358: fix inotify events for /etc/finit.conf, improved log
  messages and error handling
• Fix #361: cgroup move fail if run/task/services start as non-root.
  Regression in the v4.4 release cycle while adding support for the
  pre:/post:/ready: scripts. Now the latter scripts also properly run
  in their correct cgroup
• Fix #366: document fsck.* kernel command line options and simplify
  the configure flags --enable-fsckfix and --enable-fastboot to
  only adjust the default values for the fsck.* options.
• The runparts executor now skips backup files (foo~)
• The runparts stanza now properly appends start to scripts that
  start with S[0-9]+. This has been broken for a very long time.

Finit v4.5-rc2

Changes

• Refactor runparts and /etc/rc.local to no longer block the main loop, allowing these scripts to call initctl to interact with Finit. Still in a limited way due to them being used at bootstrap, issue #356
• Refactor the run stanza to no longer block the main loop, issue #362
• Allow sulogin with a user different from root, issue #357
• Allow disabling invocation of rescue mode from kernel command line
• Add initctl -f to force-skip asking Finit for existing services when creating new services during bootstrap, e.g. /etc/rc.local
• initctl runlevel now returns N S instead of N 10 in bootstrap
• Improved logging on failure to execvp() a run/task/service, now with errno, e.g., "No such file or directory" when the command is missing from $PATH
• Add support for Bash completion to initctl, issue #360
• Handle absolute path to initctl [enable|disable], not supported
• Update finit.conf(5) man page with the recommended directory hierarchy in /etc/finit.d/
• The runparts code has been split into /libexec/finit/runparts
• Add SysV Init Compatibility section to documentation
• Increased MAX path for commands, and arguments: 64 -> 256

Fixes

• Fix #227: believed to have been fixed in v4.3, the root cause was actually that Finit was waiting for a process that was no longer in the system. The fix is to ask the kernel on process-stop-timeout and replay the lost PID so that Finit can continue with reboot/shutdown
• Fix #358: fix inotify events for /etc/finit.conf, improved log messages and error handling
• Fix #361: cgroup move fail if run/task/services start as non-root. Regression in the v4.4 release cycle while adding support for the pre:/post:/ready: scripts. Now the latter scripts also properly run in their correct cgroup
• The runparts executor now skips backup files (foo~)
• The runparts stanza now properly appends start to scripts that start with S[0-9]+. This has been broken for a very long time.

Finit v4.4

Note 1: this release contains changes to the .conf parser. If you have .conf file statements with comment character (#) in the command options or description, you must now escape them (\#). Issue #186

Note 2: prior to this release, runlevel S and 0 were after boot treated as the same runlevel. This caused task [06] ... to also run at bootstrap instead of just at shutdown and reboot. The changes made to Finit to separate S from 0 require you to update the allowed runlevels for services that are allowed to continue running at shutdown. I.e., change [S123456789] to [S0123456789] for, e.g., sysklogd. Issue #352

Changes

• Add limited tmpfiles.d(5) support

  This change adds very basic tmpfiles.d/ support to Finit. Most of
  the basic types are supported, but not all, so for now, please check
  the code and examples for details on what is working.

• If a run/task/service command does not exist, skip registering it

  This changes the semantics of Finit a bit by checking for the command
  to run when registering it, skipping commands that cannot be found in
  the absolute path provided in the command, or in $PATH

  This change includes a new nowarn flag that can be used to prevent
  Finit from warning for missing commands. See below for an example.

• Add run/task/service support for conflict:foo handling

• Add run/task/service support for if:[!]ident and if:<[!]cond>

  Conditional loading of stanza depending on ident is already loaded (or
  not), or condition satisfied (or not). E.g., do not run mdev if we
  found and registered udevd, or load service only if <boot/testing>
  condition is set.

  The optional leading ! negates the comparison, if NOT foo then ...

• Add support for static services in /lib/finit/system/*.conf

  Slowly migrating away from hard-coded services in plugins. This way
  it's possible for the user to both inspect and override as needed.

• Migrate hotplug plugin to a conditional /lib/finit/system/hotplug.conf

  This is the first example of the just minted advanced stanza syntax with
  if:-statements, conflict: handling, and nowarn flags.

• Initial support for template services, [email protected], similar to systemd

    $ initctl show avahi-autoipd@
    service :%i avahi-autoipd --syslog %i -- ZeroConf for %i
  

  To enable ZeroConf for, e.g., eth0, use

    $ initctl enable [email protected]
  

  The enabled symlink will be set up to [email protected] and every
  instance of %i will in the instantiated directive be replaced with
  eth0. Inspect the result with:

    $ initctl status avahi-autoipd:eth0
  

• Add devmon, a <dev/foo> condition provider, issue #185

• Support for line continuation character \ in .conf files, issue #186

    service name:sysklogd [S123456789]   \
        env:-/etc/default/sysklogd       \
        syslogd -F $SYSLOGD_ARGS         \
        -- System log daemon
  

• HOOK_BASEFS_UP has been moved! External plugins that need to call
  service_register(), please use HOOK_SVC_PLUGIN from now on.
  Apologies for any inconveniences this might cause!

• getty: add support for /etc/os-release to replace uname output
  This change, which has a fallback to /usr/lib/os-release, overrides
  traditional modifiers with the os-release variant. These values were
  taken from uname, which on Linux systems are pretty useless since
  they always return the kernel name and version instead of the
  distro/OS values.

  E.g., \s becomes PRETTY_NAME instead of 'Linux' and \v becomes the
  pretty VERSION, while \r becomes VERSION_ID.

• Support for overriding /etc/finit.conf and /etc/finit.d issue #235
  New (kernel) command line option finit.config=PATH which can be used
  to redirect Finit to start up with, e.g., /etc/factory.conf instead of
  /etc/finit.conf.

  For the complete experience a new top-level configuration file directive
  rcsd PATH has aslo been added. It in turn can be used by factory.conf
  as follows to override /etc/finit.d:

    rcsd /etc/factory.d
  

• Support for overriding /etc/finit.d from the alternate finit.conf
  with a new rcsd /path/to/dot.d/ .conf file directive

• Support for fsck_mode=[auto,skip,force] + fsck_repair=[preen,no,yes]

• Add set keyword for environment variables set in /etc/finit.conf

• Support finit.cond=foo cmdline <boot/foo> conditions, issue #250

• initctl JSON output support for status and conditions, issue #273
  Example:

    root@infix:~$ initctl status -j resolvconf
    {
      "identity": "resolvconf",
      "description": "Update DNS configuration",
      "type": "task",
      "forking": false,
      "status": "done",
      "exit": { "code": 0 },
      "origin": "/etc/finit.d/enabled/sysrepo.conf",
      "command": "resolvconf -u",
      "restarts": 0,
      "pidfile": "none",
      "pid": 0,
      "user": "root",
      "group": "root",
      "uptime": 0,
      "runlevels": [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 ]
    }
  

  The excellent tool jq can be used to extract parts of the output for
  further scripting. E.g. initctl status -j foo | jq .exit.status

• Add JSON support to initctl ls command

  This allows for easy access to the disabled services:

    root@anarchy:~# initctl ls --json |jq '.available - .enabled'
    [
      "chronyd.conf",
      "dnsmasq.conf",
      "gdbserver.conf",
      "inadyn.conf",
      "inetd.conf",
      "isisd.conf",
      "lldpd.conf",
      "mstpd.conf",
      "ntpd.conf",
      "ospf6d.conf",
      "ospfd.conf",
      "querierd.conf",
      "ripd.conf",
      "ripng.conf",
      "sshd.conf",
      "syslogd.conf",
      "telnetd.conf",
      "uftpd.conf",
      "wpa_supplicant.conf",
      "zebra.conf"
    ]
  

• Allow manual:yes on sysv/service/run/task stanzas, issue #274

• Add support for oncrash:script to call the post:script action, if
  defined, for a crashing service. The EXIT_CODE variable sent to the
  script is set to crashed. Issue #282

• Search for plugins in /usr and /usr/local as well, issue #284

• tty: add support for passenv flag to /bin/login, issue #286

• Add reboot/shutdown/poweroff timeout -t SEC to initctl, issue #295

• Add support for s6 and systemd readiness notification, issue #299.
  Service readiness notification to support daemons employing systemd
  and s6 notification. Complementing the native Finit readiness support
  using PID files that exist already.

  The two have slightly different ways of implementing readiness:

  • https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/sd_notify.html
  • https://skarnet.org/software/s6/notifywhenup.html

  Finit now provides both a NOTIFY_SOCKET environment variable, for
  systemd, and a way to start s6 daemons with a descriptor argument.

  For details on the syntax, see the service documentation.

  This change also renames internal states for run/task/services to
  avoid any confusion with the introduction of ready:scripts:

  • WAITING -> PAUSED
  • READY -> WAITING

  A service condition that used, e.g., <service/foo/ready> should now
  instead use <service/foo/waiting>

• Add ready:script for services, called when daemon is ready, issue #300

• Add support for running scripts at shutdown at two new hook points
  during the shutdown process, issue #302. See doc/plugins.md for details:

  • HOOK_SVC_DN: after all services and non-reserved processes have been
    killed (and collected)
  • HOOK_SYS_DN: after all file systems have been unmounted, just prior
    to Finit calling reboot() to shut down or reboot the system

• The modules-load plugin now default to runlevel [S], in previous
  releases it was [2345]. This breaking change is to align it more
  with what users mostly want (modules loaded before services start) and
  can be changed back to the old behavior with a per-file setting:

    set runlevel 2345
  

• The modules-load plugin now adds silent tasks for modprobe. This to
  prevent confusing [ OK ] boot messages when in fact modprobe failed.

• The modules-load plugin now support set modprobe /path/to/modprobe

• The header files finit/conf.h and finit/service.h are now exported
  for external plugins

• Add support for multiple args to initctl cond set/clr, issue #329

• Silence confusing [ OK ] progress from modules-load plugin, issue #332

  This change drops the confusing status progress output, which was always
  OK since the actual modprobe operation runs in the background. No need
  to show status of the "added a task to finit, found modprobe" command.

• dbus plugin: adapt to other operating systems

  Not all Linux systems are based on Debian, and even if they are inspired
  by Debian (Buildroot), they do not necessarily use the same defaults.
  Probes the system at runtime for:

  • dbus user and group
  • dbus PID file

  If the user/group cannot be found we fall back to root, if the PID
  file cannot be determined we ignore PID file readiness.

• Improve documentation for runparts and hook scripts. Issue #315, #320

• Add HOOK_NETWORK_DN, called after change to runlevel 6 or 0, issue #319

• Use sysklogd logger tool instead of legacy logit tool, issue #344

  For log redirection Finit has the legacy logit tool. This change
  allows Finit to use the sysklogd project's extended logger tool
  instead, when available. Allowing logging with the process' PID.

• Add initctl aliases: cat -> show, kill -> signal

• Add initctl -n,--noerr to return ...

Finit v4.4-rc2

Note 1: this release contains changes to the .conf parser. If you
have .conf file statements with comment character (#) in the command
options or description, you must now escape them (\#). Issue #186

Note 2: prior to this release, runlevel S and 0 were after
boot treated as the same runlevel. This caused task [06] ... to
also run at bootstrap instead of just at shutdown and reboot. The
changes made to Finit to separate S from 0 require you to update
the allowed runlevels for services that are allowed to continue
running at shutdown. I.e., change [S123456789] to [S0123456789]
for, e.g., sysklogd. Issue #352

Changes

• Add limited tmpfiles.d(5) support

  This change adds very basic tmpfiles.d/ support to Finit. Most of
  the basic types are supported, but not all, so for now, please check
  the code and examples for details on what is working.

• If a run/task/service command does not exist, skip registering it

  This changes the semantics of Finit a bit by checking for the command
  to run when registering it, skipping commands that cannot be found in
  the absolute path provided in the command, or in $PATH

  This change includes a new nowarn flag that can be used to prevent
  Finit from warning for missing commands. See below for an example.

• Add run/task/service support for conflict:foo handling

• Add run/task/service support for if:[!]ident and if:<[!]cond>

  Conditional loading of stanza depending on ident is already loaded (or
  not), or condition satisfied (or not). E.g., do not run mdev if we
  found and registered udevd, or load service only if <boot/testing>
  condition is set.

  The optional leading ! negates the comparison, if NOT foo then ...

• Add support for static services in /lib/finit/system/*.conf

  Slowly migrating away from hard-coded services in plugins. This way
  it's possible for the user to both inspect and override as needed.

• Migrate hotplug plugin to a conditional /lib/finit/system/hotplug.conf

  This is the first example of the just minted advanced stanza syntax with
  if:-statements, conflict: handling, and nowarn flags.

• Initial support for template services, [email protected], similar to systemd

    $ initctl show avahi-autoipd@
    service :%i avahi-autoipd --syslog %i -- ZeroConf for %i
  

  To enable ZeroConf for, e.g., eth0, use

    $ initctl enable [email protected]
  

  The enabled symlink will be set up to [email protected] and every
  instance of %i will in the instantiated directive be replaced with
  eth0. Inspect the result with:

    $ initctl status avahi-autoipd:eth0
  

• Add devmon, a <dev/foo> condition provider, issue #185

• Support for line continuation character \ in .conf files, issue #186

    service name:sysklogd [S123456789]   \
        env:-/etc/default/sysklogd       \
        syslogd -F $SYSLOGD_ARGS         \
        -- System log daemon
  

• HOOK_BASEFS_UP has been moved! External plugins that need to call
  service_register(), please use HOOK_SVC_PLUGIN from now on.
  Apologies for any inconveniences this might cause!

• getty: add support for /etc/os-release to replace uname output
  This change, which has a fallback to /usr/lib/os-release, overrides
  traditional modifiers with the os-release variant. These values were
  taken from uname, which on Linux systems are pretty useless since
  they always return the kernel name and version instead of the
  distro/OS values.

  E.g., \s becomes PRETTY_NAME instead of 'Linux' and \v becomes the
  pretty VERSION, while \r becomes VERSION_ID.

• Support for overriding /etc/finit.conf and /etc/finit.d issue #235
  New (kernel) command line option finit.config=PATH which can be used
  to redirect Finit to start up with, e.g., /etc/factory.conf instead of
  /etc/finit.conf.

  For the complete experience a new top-level configuration file directive
  rcsd PATH has aslo been added. It in turn can be used by factory.conf
  as follows to override /etc/finit.d:

    rcsd /etc/factory.d
  

• Support for overriding /etc/finit.d from the alternate finit.conf
  with a new rcsd /path/to/dot.d/ .conf file directive

• Support for fsck_mode=[auto,skip,force] + fsck_repair=[preen,no,yes]

• Add set keyword for environment variables set in /etc/finit.conf

• Support finit.cond=foo cmdline <boot/foo> conditions, issue #250

• initctl JSON output support for status and conditions, issue #273
  Example:

    root@infix:~$ initctl status -j resolvconf
    {
      "identity": "resolvconf",
      "description": "Update DNS configuration",
      "type": "task",
      "forking": false,
      "status": "done",
      "exit": { "code": 0 },
      "origin": "/etc/finit.d/enabled/sysrepo.conf",
      "command": "resolvconf -u",
      "restarts": 0,
      "pidfile": "none",
      "pid": 0,
      "user": "root",
      "group": "root",
      "uptime": 0,
      "runlevels": [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 ]
    }
  

  The excellent tool jq can be used to extract parts of the output for
  further scripting. E.g. initctl status -j foo | jq .exit.status

• Add JSON support to initctl ls command

  This allows for easy access to the disabled services:

    root@anarchy:~# initctl ls --json |jq '.available - .enabled'
    [
      "chronyd.conf",
      "dnsmasq.conf",
      "gdbserver.conf",
      "inadyn.conf",
      "inetd.conf",
      "isisd.conf",
      "lldpd.conf",
      "mstpd.conf",
      "ntpd.conf",
      "ospf6d.conf",
      "ospfd.conf",
      "querierd.conf",
      "ripd.conf",
      "ripng.conf",
      "sshd.conf",
      "syslogd.conf",
      "telnetd.conf",
      "uftpd.conf",
      "wpa_supplicant.conf",
      "zebra.conf"
    ]
  

• Allow manual:yes on sysv/service/run/task stanzas, issue #274

• Add support for oncrash:script to call the post:script action, if
  defined, for a crashing service. The EXIT_CODE variable sent to the
  script is set to crashed. Issue #282

• Search for plugins in /usr and /usr/local as well, issue #284

• tty: add support for passenv flag to /bin/login, issue #286

• Add reboot/shutdown/poweroff timeout -t SEC to initctl, issue #295

• Add support for s6 and systemd readiness notification, issue #299.
  Service readiness notification to support daemons employing systemd
  and s6 notification. Complementing the native Finit readiness support
  using PID files that exist already.

  The two have slightly different ways of implementing readiness:

  • https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/sd_notify.html
  • https://skarnet.org/software/s6/notifywhenup.html

  Finit now provides both a NOTIFY_SOCKET environment variable, for
  systemd, and a way to start s6 daemons with a descriptor argument.

  For details on the syntax, see the service documentation.

  This change also renames internal states for run/task/services to
  avoid any confusion with the introduction of ready:scripts:

  • WAITING -> PAUSED
  • READY -> WAITING

  A service condition that used, e.g., <service/foo/ready> should now
  instead use <service/foo/waiting>

• Add ready:script for services, called when daemon is ready, issue #300

• Add support for running scripts at shutdown at two new hook points
  during the shutdown process, issue #302. See doc/plugins.md for details:

  • HOOK_SVC_DN: after all services and non-reserved processes have been
    killed (and collected)
  • HOOK_SYS_DN: after all file systems have been unmounted, just prior
    to Finit calling reboot() to shut down or reboot the system

• The modules-load plugin now default to runlevel [S], in previous
  releases it was [2345]. This breaking change is to align it more
  with what users mostly want (modules loaded before services start) and
  can be changed back to the old behavior with a per-file setting:

    set runlevel 2345
  

• The modules-load plugin now adds silent tasks for modprobe. This to
  prevent confusing [ OK ] boot messages when in fact modprobe failed.

• The modules-load plugin now support set modprobe /path/to/modprobe

• The header files finit/conf.h and finit/service.h are now exported
  for external plugins

• Add support for multiple args to initctl cond set/clr, issue #329

• Silence confusing [ OK ] progress from modules-load plugin, issue #332

  This change drops the confusing status progress output, which was always
  OK since the actual modprobe operation runs in the background. No need
  to show status of the "added a task to finit, found modprobe" command.

• dbus plugin: adapt to other operating systems

  Not all Linux systems are based on Debian, and even if they are inspired
  by Debian (Buildroot), they do not necessarily use the same defaults.
  Probes the system at runtime for:

  • dbus user and group
  • dbus PID file

  If the user/group cannot be found we fall back to root, if the PID
  file cannot be determined we ignore PID file readiness.

• Improve documentation for runparts and hook scripts. Issue #315, #320

• Add HOOK_NETWORK_DN, called after change to runlevel 6 or 0, issue #319

• Use sysklogd logger tool instead of legacy logit tool, issue #344

  For log redirection Finit has the legacy logit tool. This change
  allows Finit to use the sysklogd project's extended logger tool
  instead, when available. Allowing logging with the process' PID.

• Add initctl aliases: cat -> show, kill -> signal

• Add `initct...