finit/doc/ChangeLog.md

Change Log

All relevant changes are documented in this file.

Unreleased

Changes

• Restart log now spells out the signal name and flags core dumps, e.g. killed by SIGKILL or killed by SIGSEGV, core dumped, in place of the bare numeric by signal: N. Gives operators a much stronger breadcrumb when a daemon dies unexpectedly
• Service user: and group: names, including supplementary groups, can now be up to 63 characters, up from 15. Longer names were silently truncated before the lookup, so the service never started. By Anees Rehman
• Shutdown now stops after the first successful remount of / read only. The plain mount -n -o remount,ro /, which reads /etc/fstab, is only used when both device-agnostic forms fail, the same order as Debian's umountroot. By Anees Rehman

Fixes

• Remove stale daemon-owned (pid:!) pidfiles after unclean exits. When a daemon dies via SIGKILL/OOM/segfault, or exits early during startup, its pidfile lingers and can prevent the next instance from starting -- dbus-daemon for example refuses to start when its pidfile already exists, so Finit's restart loop gives up. Finit now drops the file when it still names the just-reaped PID and that PID is no longer alive (the liveness check guards against PID reuse). This is a controlled exception to the long-standing rule that Finit does not touch service-owned pidfiles
• Fix misspelled SIGUNKOWN returned by sig_name() for unknown signal numbers, now spelled correctly as SIGUNKNOWN. Surfaced by the new restart log above
• Fix mode of existing d/D directories in tmpfiles, the chmod branch never ran because the directory creation swallowed EEXIST. Mode and owner of d/D, e, and f/F entries, and of the directories mksubsys() creates for the dbus plugin, are now set through an open fd and only when they differ, so an immutable directory like /var/empty no longer warns on every boot. By Sam Brkopac
• Fix crash at config load for a stop: or reload: script written with a timeout, e.g. stop:5,/bin/true, which took PID 1 down
• Fix a lost reload for a service paused mid-reload by a condition in flux. A second reload arriving meanwhile re-parsed the unchanged .conf and cleared the pending mark, so the service resumed without ever being reloaded. Seen on Infix, where sshd kept its old listen addresses after a change that landed as two reloads in a row

4.17 - 2026-04-28

Changes

• Add Plymouth boot splash plugin to manage the plymouthd lifecycle across boot, switch_root, and shutdown. Activated by the splash kernel command line argument. By Aaron Andersen
• Add tty: option for run/task/service stanzas to acquire a controlling terminal. The device is opened as stdin, set as the session's controlling TTY via TIOCSCTTY, and TERM is set automatically — linux for virtual terminals and vt102 for serial lines. By Ollie Gutierrez
• Improve console output atomicity at boot and shutdown: description and status ([ OK ] / [FAIL]) are emitted in a single write so kernel messages cannot split them. If output has been scrolled away, the description is re-printed before the final status line. Console buffer is drained with tcdrain(2) and ANSI attributes are reset before handing control back to the kernel at shutdown/reboot

Fixes

• Fix reverse-dependency condition handling on reload: when a service without SIGHUP support is reloaded, its condition is now cleared immediately so dependents transition to STOPPING before SIGTERM is sent to the parent, preventing them from crashing with an incremented restart counter
• Fix /var/tmp mode in tmpfiles.d/var.conf from 0777 to 1777 (sticky bit) to match /tmp, by Aaron Andersen
• Fix potential memory corruption in config parser: stale pointer captures of PATH and SHELL at startup could dangle after environment modification; conf_reset_env() now reads from the live environment instead, by Vasily Zubko
• Fix plugin name registration: replace __FILE__ macro with explicit string literals in all plugin structs and debug messages, preventing subtle build- system–dependent macro expansion issues, by Vasily Zubko

4.16 - 2026-02-27

Changes

• Add initctl switch-root command and plugin hook point. Useful for systems requiring early boot tasks like LUKS unlock, LVM activation, or network boot before mounting the real root, by Aaron Andersen
• Set USER and LOGNAME environment variables when dropping privileges. Fixes issues with software like rootless Podman that determines user identity from environment variables, by Aaron Andersen
• Add remain:yes option for run/task oneshot commands, similar to the systemd RemainAfterExit=yes, by Aaron Andersen
• Clear service conditions on initctl reload NAME to ensure dependent services are properly updated
• Run service stop: and reload: scripts as non-blocking processes, preventing Finit from stalling on long-running helper scripts
• Guard shutdown with timer watchdog to detect and debug shutdown hangs
• Add ~ condition prefix to propagate reload from a dependency to the dependent service. E.g., <!~pid/netd> means not only a regular condition, but when netd reloads, restart this service too. Similar to systemd's directive PropagatesReloadTo=, but declared on the consumer side. Issue #416
• tmpfiles: add support for -E and --exclude-prefix flags contributed by Aaron Andersen

Fixes

• Fix #464: invalid user:group examples in cgroups.md
• Fix #466: elogind path for Debian-based distros, by Jackie Liu
• Fix #467: TTY services stuck in restart state after non-zero exit. Throttling logic introduced in v4.15 had duplicate checks causing infinite timer loop, and TTYs lacked default restart timeout
• Fix #475: clear pid condition on service collection to fix stale deps. When a service crashes (SIGKILL), the RUNNING → HALTED path bypasses STOPPING where cond_clear() is normally called, leaving dependents stuck
• Fix #476: dependents not restarted after SIGHUP reload of service in dependency chain. Add service_step_all() at end of reload cycle to guarantee convergence after conditions are reasserted. See also the new ~ condition prefix (above) to propagate reload to dependents
• Fix #478: fix <dev/foo> conditions at boot, conditions that exist before inotify was set up. Found and fixed by Mattias Walström
• Fix reload of SIGHUP-capable services incorrectly disrupting their dependents. E.g., initctl reload syslogd would stop dbus, dnsmasq, etc. even though syslogd handles SIGHUP gracefully and its PID persists
• Only remove managed pidfiles in service cleanup. For SysV services with pid:!/path, the pidfile belongs to the service itself and Finit should not delete it
• Silence spurious cgroup warnings for short-lived processes where the kernel reaps the child before cgroup assignment completes
• Fix handling of already-mounted cgroups in cgroup_init(), can occur after switch_root or in container environments
• Improve cgroups documentation clarity, grammar, and examples

4.15 - 2026-01-01

The Finit project now has a new home page: https://finit-project.github.io

Changes

• Change default reboot to SOC reset from WDT reset, issue #460
• Bump required versions of libite (v2.6.2) and libuev (v2.4.1)
• Allow longer service identifiers (:id), up to 64 characters
• Allow skipping bootstrap wait (180 sec) with Ctrl-C
• Unlock initctl commands start/stop/restart/reload service during bootstrap, shutdown, and reboot. Also, allow initctl reload in bootstrap. This makes it possible to start manual:yes type services at botostrap, for example, which has been a common feature request
• Add support for clone3() syscall with atomic cgroup assignment, from Linux kernel 5.3+. Eliminates race conditions where forked processes (e.g., logger processes) ended up in wrong cgroups. Falls back to fork() on older kernels
• Add support for cgroup delegation, useful for, e.g., container runtimes creating sub-groups for the container instance's processes
• Add cgroup leaf name override: cgroup.system,name:udevd allows using descriptive names like /system/udevd/ instead of filename derived names like /system/10-hotplug/. Syntax supports combining with other options: cgroup.system,name:foo,delegate,cpu.max:10000
• Add support for Linux capabilities, allowing services to run with minimal required privileges instead of running as root. Uses the modern IAB API (Inheritable, Ambient, Bounding) from libcap. By Aaron Andersen
• Add support for supplementary groups for services. Uses the syntax @user:group,sup1,sup2 to explicitly specify supplementary groups, in addition to reading group membership from /etc/group. By Aaron Andersen
• Add CPU throttled information to initctl output, showing when a service has been throttled due to reaching its CPU quota
• Add memory field to initctl --json status output for cgroup-enabled services
• Default to user and group root (UID 0) for services
• Always check that service user and group resolve to valid UID/GID pairs, otherwise log error and refuse to start service
• Hide cursor at boot and shutdown for cleaner visual experience
• Rename tty services early from init -> getty even though no getty process has been started yet. This to aid in boot timing detection using tools like bootchartd (BusyBox version or bootchart2 project) when Finit only shows "Please press Enter to activate this console."
• Services with respawn option (including TTYs) now delay retry on non-zero exit codes instead of immediate respawn. Prevents busy-loop when service fails repeatedly, which on some systems may have a crippling effect

Fixes

• Fix #453: RTC plugin fixes by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Fix #455: ANSI escape sequences logged by tools using glib logging, caused by use of PTY instead of pipe for stdout/stderr redirection
• Fix #462: /dev/pts mounted with wrong mode (400 instead of 620), causing permission issues with pseudo-terminals
• getty: fix terminal scrollback issues after login on console TTY. Mouse scroll wheel and Shift+PgUp/PgDn sometimes would not work properly
• Fix flickering and artifacts in initctl top
• Fix file descriptor leak in initctl top
• Fix incorrect "max" limit reporting in initctl [top|cgroup|--json] output for child cgroups. Resolves effective limits by walking the cgroup hierarchy
• Fix issue with running Finit under bootchartd (bootchart2 project), always set PATH and SHELL envs early, before attempting to mount /proc et al
• Always reset ownership and permissions on TTY device nodes before launching getty
• Ensure mount/unmount skips noauto entries

4.14 - 2025-08-29

Minor bug fix release.

Changes

• Add exit status/signal info when a process dies, by Mattias Berthel
• Extend service kill:SEC to support up to 300 sec.
• Extend norespawn debug to cover service_retry()
• Build without libsystemd replacement by default

Fixes

• Fix #449: ALSA plugin fail-to-build-from-source
• Fix sysv stop command process environment, should be same as start
• Fix state machine ordering issue: enter new config generation after services disabled in previous generation have been stopped

4.13 - 2025-07-10

Note

This release introduce a bare bones libsystemd replacement with an <systemd/sd-daemon>.h include file. Other systemd features are the reload:script and stop:script, mimicking ExecReload and ExecStop.

Changes

• initctl signal command has been renamed to initctl kill
• Drop xz tarballs from distribution, gzip is good enough
• New tmpfiles stand-alone program, refactored from the existing tmpfiles.d support in Finit, by Aaron Andersen, PR #439
  • --remove command runs only the r and R rules
  • --create is used for all other cases (bootstrap)
• All notify:systemd services now log with logit by default. This because it supports systemd style log severity, leading "<NUM>"
• Support for quoted arguments to run/task/service options, issue #441
• Clear command line arguments after bootstrap, issue #442
• Support for stop:'script [args]' to stop a sysv/service instead of the common foo-stop-start.sh stop, or SIGTERM, issue #412
• Support for reload:'script [args]' to trigger a configuration reload in a service, issue #446

Fixes

• Fix #437: buffer overflow in initctl status
• Fix #438: support very long command lines in initctl ps/top
• Fix #440: broken systemd and s6 readiness notification
• Fix #443: build warnings, by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Fix #444: handle loooooong arguments, by Aaron Andersen
• Fix service's redirected stdout/stderr log priority in fallback mode, when neither logger or logit is available. This fix also checks for systemd style log severity, leading "<NUM>" in log messages
• Ensure API socket used by initctl is non-blocking (event loop)

4.12 - 2025-04-28

Changes

• Improve notify:s6 readiness compatibility, by Aaron Andersen
• Update runparts usage text

Fixes

• Fix variable overloading in urandom plugin
• Fix buffer overwrite in urandom plugin, reported by Aaron Andersen

4.11 - 2025-03-27

Changes

• Update documentation regarding transition from runlevel S to 2, how run/tasks must "complete" before Finit can move to the next runlevel
• Improve argument handling in bundled getty when launching login

Fixes

• Fix #432: allow services in setup state to be stopped. This fixes a serious blocker introduced in 4.10 that prevented systems from being rebooted when any service was in this state
• Fix fallback SIGKILL when stopping a service with SIGTERM does not work. This fixes a serious issue with services not responding to the default SIGTERM
• Fix pre/post/ready/cleanup script execution if service has an optional env:file (leading -)
• Fix blocked signals for pre/post/ready/cleanup scripts preventing normal shutdown when a service/sysv is stopped in its setup state
• Fix issue where a pre:script creates a PID file in /run cause the service to move from setup state to running. Any svc_t in setup, teardown, or cleanup state should be ignored in the pidfile plugin

4.10 - 2025-03-03

Changes

• Add support for cleanup:[0-3600,]script, runs before service is removed, unlike post:script that runs when service is stopped
• Improved entropy gathering in tertiary fallback of urandom plugin
• Reclassify sysv from run/task class to service

Fixes

• Fix #427: using an external getty with custom login program cause Finit to use login program as the getty command
• Fix #428: allow sysctl path to be set at build time
• Fix #429: regression in v4.9 causing Finit to segfault at shutdown
• Fix possible memory leak when sourcing a service env:file
• Finit now waits until all post:scripts have run before returning OK to initctl <reload|runlevel>. This also applies to the new cleanup:scripts introduced in this release
• RFC3154 conformance formatting fix for /dev/kmsg fallback logging

4.9 - 2025-02-15

Caution

This release changes how Finit reacts to the exit status of pre: scripts. Finit will now no longer start the main process if its pre: script fails for any reason. So, if you have pre scripts that, e.g., create directories, make sure they are idempotent.

Changes

• Add individual timeout (optional) support for pre/post/ready scripts
• Add support for systems with broken RTC, i.e., those that at power-on may reset the RTC to a random date instead of zero, issue #418
• Add support for detecting "in-container" when in systemd-nspawn
• Check exit status of pre: scripts, on failure drive service/sysv to crashed state. (The exit code of post: scripts remain ignored)
• All pre/post/ready scripts are now also searched for in $PATH
• Reset color attributes and clear screen when starting up. This is for boot loaders like GRUB, which leave background color artifacts

Fixes

• Fix #415: only mark reverse-dependencies "dirty" if the main service does not support SIGHUP. This helps avoid unnecessary restarts of services that depend on a service that supports SIGHUP
• Fix #417: leaking inotify watchers in the cgroup subsystem
• Fix #421: add support for nofail mount option in /etc/fstab
• Fix #425: ordering bug in detecting .conf file changes to services and initctl reload, or runlevel changes
• Fix initctl touch of template services, previously marking a service created from a template as "dirty" did not take
• Fix unintended restart of template "siblings". I.e., initctl touch of instantiated template service A affected B from same template
• Fix buggy --with-rtc-date=DATE configure option
• Fix kill on timeout of pre/post/ready scripts

4.8 - 2024-10-13

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 template@foo.conf 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 legacy 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

4.7 - 2024-01-07

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

4.6 - 2023-11-13

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

4.5 - 2023-10-30

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, 82cc10be8, 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).

4.4 - 2023-05-15

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, foo@.conf, 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 avahi-autoipd@eth0.conf
  

  The enabled symlink will be set up to avahi-autoipd@.conf 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 also 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 OK(0) if services do not exist, for integration with openresolv and scripts with similar requirements

• Add initctl plugins, list installed plugins

• Add timestamp to log messages in fallback and logging to stderr.
  When there is no log daemon, and we are running in a container, or we cannot log to the kernel ring buffer, then we log to stderr. This change improves log output by prefixing each message with a timestamp.

Fixes

• Fix #254: document limitations in rc.local and runparts scripts

• Fix #269: add compulsory kernel symlinks in /dev

• Fix #275: initctl status foo should list all instances, regression introduced in v4.3

• Fix #278: enforce conditions also for running pre: scripts

• Fix #279: allow restart:always, of crashing services. Similar to respawn but honors restart_sec

• Fix #280: allow calling initctl restart foo from within foo

• Fix #283: too quick timeout at bootstrap of lingering tasks

• Fix #285: initctl restart should start crashed service

• Fix #288: enable built-in sulogin in Alpine and Void Linux builds

• Fix #293: modprobe plugin: support for coldplugging more devices. It turns out, not all buses in Linux add modalias attributes to their devices in sysfs. One notable exception are MDIO buses. The plugin's scan routine would thus not pick them up.

• Fix #294: shutdown --help mistakenly shuts down system

• Fix #310: Always use configured restart delay for crashing services. If no delay is configured, default to an initial 2000 msec for forking daemons and start-stop scripts, and 1 msec for non-forking daemons

• Fix #311: document how to combine device tree with conditions

• Fix #312: restart services with respawn set, e.g. ttys, immediately

• Fix #313: Cancel pending restart timer on stop/start/restart/reload

• Fix #314: skip run/task/service restart if conditions are lost

• Fix #315: add environment variables to hook scripts

  All hook scripts are called with at least one environment variable set, FINIT_HOOK_NAME, useful when reusing the same hook script for multiple hook points. It is set to the string name, also used by the path, e.g., hook/net/up

  For all hook points from hook/sys/shutdown and later, FINIT_SHUTDOWN is also set, to one of: halt, poweroff, reboot

• Fix #317: make sure hook scripts don't run twice, also fixes #316

• Fix #318: only show [ OK ] Calling foo progress for runparts ...

• Fix #320: the API/IPC socket is closed immediately at shutdown/reboot to protect hook scripts or services calling initctl. There is no way to service these requests safely at that time

• Fix #333: consider a service dirty if command line args have changed

  This fixes initctl reload correctly restarting all daemons that have new command line arguments.

  Previously command line arguments changes were only acted upon if the service was explicitly reloaded initctl reload myservice.

  Found and fixed by Jack Newman

• Fix #338: ensure shutdown hooks are called properly; hook/sys/down and hook/svc/down hook scripts, found and fixed by Jack Newman

• Fix #339: use absolute path in /etc/finit.d/enabled/ symlinks, for use-cases when /etc is read-only and /etc/finit.d/enabled -> /mnt/finit.d/enabled, reported by Jack Newman

• Fix #340: Finit ignores deleted/moved .conf file sin /etc/finit.d

• Fix #342: in runlevel S (bootstrap), not all initctl commands can be supported, block the following: runlevel, reload, start/stop, restart, reload, halt, poweroff, suspend. Also, prevent SIGHUP and SIGUSR1 signals when in shutdown or reboot

• Fix #352: separate runlevel S from runlevel 0

• Fix #355: regression in v3.2 stopping a process and its group

  In Finit v3.2 a regression was introduced that affects the way Finit stops a supervised process and its process group.

  Instead of sending SIGTERM to the process, and thus delegating the responsibility to that process to inform any children it may have, as of commit 91a9c83 Finit sends SIGTERM to the entire process group. For SIGKILL this is fine, SIGKILL only runs as cleanup and as a last ditch effort if the process doesn't respond to SIGTERM.

  This regression, introduced in v3.2, directly affects services like avahi-autoipd that have forked off children that it needs to tell to exit cleanly before it returns. With the patch in question these children are never allowed to complete, which in turn causes lingering 169.254 link-local addresses on interfaces.

• Fix bootmisc plugin: octal permission on /run/lock and /var/lock

• Ensure initctl cond get support the flux state (exit code 255)

• Fix potential socket leak at bootstrap and shutdown

• Fix potential NULL pointer deref in kernel command line parser

• Fix lingering condition in service after reload of service with new config that has no condition

• Fix wrong path to command in service after reload, may have changed

• logit: fall back to package name if $LOGNAME and $USER are unset. Note: you should probably not use logit in your own scripts, it is only meant for internal use by Finit. We recommend using logger from the bsdutils or sysklogd packages instead

• Fix issue where env:/pre:/post:/etc. is removed from a service

  The trick is when reloading a service like this:

    service env:/etc/env    serv -np -e foo:bar
  

  into this:

    service pre:/bin/pre.sh serv -np
  

  In the second the env: has been removed and pre: added. Prior to this patch, env: was kept leading to unintended behavior.

• Fix parse/diff of command line args, e.g., nginx -g 'daemon off;'

  Starting a service like this works fine:

    service [2345789] env:-/etc/default/nginx nginx -g 'daemon off;'
  

  However, on initctl reload (and no change to .conf files) the arg list was lost while parsing the .conf files. Leading to a false positive 'diff' in args causing nginx to be unnecessarily restarted.

• Fix issue with disabled "linewrap" on the console TTY after login. The root cause is qemu-system-x86_64 -nographics disabling it when starting up. The correct \e[?7h escape code is now used.

4.3 - 2022-05-15

Critical bug fix release. If you run a 32-bit target with GLIBC 2.34 you need to upgrade!

Note: system verbosity on console at start and shutdown has been increased. Now the output of all commands is logged to the system logger, for early services /dev/kmsg is used.

Also: please notice the updated support for enabling and disabling kernel and Finit debug messages on the system console. Very useful when debugging either of them, e.g., a kernel module. For details, see cmdline.md.

Changes

• Support for overriding default runlevel from kernel command line. Any runlevel [1-9] may be selected, except 6 (reboot). Issue #261
• New command line option: finit.fstab=/etc/fstab.custom, with full support for mounting, mount helpers, fsck, and swapon/off, issue #224
• Support for special device /dev/root, which may not exist in /dev. Finit now looks up the matching block device for / in /sys/block/
• Loading modules no longer shows arguments in progress output
• Warning messages in progress output now in yellow, not red, issue #214
• initctl, new command line option -V,--version for ease of use
• New condition done for run task, issue #207 by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Refactor parts of shutdown and reboot sequence for PREEMPT-RT kernels, by Robert Andersson, Mathias Thore, and Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Conditions for run/task/sysv status, e.g. run/foo/success and task/bar/failure. Issue #232, by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Conditions for services, can be used to synchronize other stanzas:
  • service/foo/running
  • service/foo/halted
  • service/foo/missing
  • service/foo/crashed
  • service/foo/stopped
  • service/foo/busy
  • service/foo/restart
• initctl signal support, by Jörgen Sigvardsson, issue #225
• initctl cond get support to match cond [set | clear], issue #255
• [WARN] messages on console now printed in yellow, issue #214
• Network services now also stopped when going to runlevel 6 (reboot), not just runlevel 0 (shutdown) or 1 (single-user)
• When ifup is missing on the system, bring at least lo up at boot
• Log output from ifup -a (and ifdown -a), to syslog
• Avoid blocking PID 1 when starting SysV init scripts
• Allow custom pid: for SysV init scripts
• Document supported types of forking/non-forking services
• Auto-detect running in some common forms of containers
• Simplify shutdown/reboot when running in a container
• Log to stderr when running in a container w/o syslog daemon
• Add support for type:forking to services, already supported but with a very difficult pid: syntax, issue #223. Docs updated
• Support for setting global environment variables in finit.conf, please note: this also affects Finit itself, be careful!
• Extended environment variables for pre/post scripts, issue #189
• Document secret service option respawn, which bypasses the crash semantics, allowing endless restarts
• Document secret HOOK_BANNER, the first hook point before the banner
• Document slightly confusing initctl reload foo command. It does not reload the service's .conf file! Issue #263
• Log changes; all instances where previously the basename cmd of a service was used to identify the service, now the proper name:id is used instead. Meaning, a service without a custom :ID or name: will display the same as before, but with any of those customizations the name and name:id will now be shown. Note: this may affect any log scrapers out there!
• New plugin: hook-scripts, allows run-parts(8) style scripts to run on any hook point. Contributed by Tobias Waldekranz
• initctl (reboot) falls back to -f when it detects it is in sulogin recovery mode, issue #247
• The bundled sulogin is no longer enabled by default, in favor of distribution versions. Enable with ./configure --with-sulogin
• Support args to sysv-like scripts, e.g. bridge-stp br0 start
• The modules-load plugin now skips all lines starting with # and ;. Furthermore, files in /etc/modules-load.d/*.conf are now read in lexicographic order and UNIX backup files (foo.conf~) are skipped
• The name:id tuple is now more consistently used in all log and debug messages instead of the basename of the command
• Simplify error output of initctl start/stop/restart/signal, no more extra usage help, just a plain error message
• Exit codes of initctl have changed to use LSB script standard and BSD sysexits.h exit codes. As before, a non-zero exit is error or missing
• Add support for initctl -q to more commands: stop, start, restart, reload, signal, etc.

Fixes

• Fix nasty 32/64-bit alignment issue between finit and its plugins, applicable to 32-bit targets with GLIBC 2.34 and later. External plugins must make sure to use, at least: -D_TIME_BITS=64
• Fix #215: disable cgroup support at runtime if kernel lacks support or does not have the required controllers (cpu)
• Fix #217: iwatcher initialization issue, by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Fix #218: initctl matches too many services, by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Fix #219: not all filesystems unmounted at shutdown, by Ming Liu, Mathias Thore, and Robert Andersson, Atlas Copco
• Fix #226: initctl shows wrong PID for crashing services
• Fix #227: reboot stalls if process stopped with [WARN]
• Fix #233: initctl shows wrong status for run/task, by Sergio Morlans and Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Fix #248: source env:file also in pre: and post scripts
• Fix #260: drop limit on device name in Checking filesystem... output
• Fix start/stop and monitoring (restart) of SysV init scripts and forking services, see the updated documentation for details
• Fix call to swapoff at shutdown, does not support -e flag
• Fix suspend to RAM issue. Previously reboot(RB_SW_SUSPEND) was used, now the modern /sys/power/state API is used instead.
• Fix nasty run/task/service matcher bug, triggered by stanzas using the same basename of a command but different :ID. Caused Finit to match with already registered but different run/task/service

4.2 - 2022-01-16

Changes

• Support for non-root users to use initctl, e.g. group wheel
• Support for new libite (-lite) header namespace
• RTC plugin now reset an invalid RTC time to the kernel default time, 2000-01-01 00:00, prevents errors and is less crazy than some systems coming with with <= Jan 1, 1970
• urandom plugin now use RNDADDENTROPY ioctl to seed kernel rng, incrementing entropy count. Also, 32 kiB instead of 512 bytes are now saved (and restored) on reboot. This should greatly improve reliability of systems with none or poor HWRNG
• Kernel logging to console (loglevel >= 7, debug, when quiet mode is not used) is now honored by Finit, regardless of the finit.debug command line option
• Reduced default log level from LOG_NOTICE to LOG_INFO
• Wrapped all calls to mount(2) to add logging in case of failure
• New configure options to control fastboot (no fsck) and fsck fix options, by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Support for overriding default /etc/nologin file with an external #define, by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Support for overriding default /var/run/dbus/pid file with an external #define, by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Support for more service options to control respawn behavior of crashing services, by Robert Andersson and Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Support for initctl ident [NAME] which lists all instances of NAME, or all enabled system run/tasks and services
• Show number of total restarts and current respawn count for a service in initctl status foo
• Crashing services no longer have the crash/restart counter reset as soon as they have stabilized. Instead, a background timer will slowly (every 300 sec) age (decrement) the counter. This will still catch services that "rage quit", but also those that crash after a longer period of activity

Fixes

• Fix #180: user managed (manual:yes) services accidentally started by initctl reload, regression introduced in Finit v4.0
• Fix #181: lots of typos all over the tree, by David Yang, Debian
• Fix #187: fix typos, incl. small cleanup, in doc/bootstrap.md
• Fix #188: support running on kernels that do not have cgroups v2. When this is detect, all functions related to cgroups support in Finit are disabled, except the .conf file parser. Hence, you may get parse error if you have invalid cgroup configuration in your Finit .conf files
• Fix #197: initctl status foo now shows a focused overview of all matching instances; foo:1, foo:2 -- if only one instance matches the command line argument, or if onle one instance exists, the detailed view is shown, as before
• Fix #198: a few typos found by Tim Gates
• Fix #199: avoid using C++ reserved keywords
• Fix #201: memory leak in usr condition plugin, by Ming Liu, Atlas Copco
• Fix #203: ensure all filesystems listed in /proc/mounts are properly unumounted on shutdown/reboot, by Robert Andersson, Atlas Copco
• Fix #210: resizing terminal (smaller) after boot causes empty lines to be inserted between boot progress
• Fix #211: drop hard-coded 32 character limit in getty, now reads _SC_LOGIN_NAME_MAX from sysconf(3)
• Fix #212: service PID file lost after inictl reload, visible from the output from initctl status foo

4.1 - 2021-06-06

Bug fix release. Also disables handlers for SIGINT and SIGPWR, a new set of sys conditions are instead generated which can be used to trigger external programs.

Changes

• Change behavior on SIGUSR1 to be compatible with sysvinit and systemd. Previously SIGUSR1 caused Finit to halt, like BusyBox init. This had "interesting" side effects on Debian systems when coexisting with sysvinit (upgrading/reinstalling causes scripts to kill -USR1 1)
• Change how contrib/debian/install.sh sets up a Grub boot entry for finit. We now modify the $SUPPORTED_INITS variable in 10_linux
• Disable default kernel ctrl-alt-delete handler and let Finit instead catch SIGINT from kernel to be able to perform a proper reboot. There is no default command for this, you need to set up a task that triggers on <sys/key/ctrlaltdel> to issue initctl reboot
• Added keventd to provide <sys/pwr/ac> condition to Finit. keventd is currently only responsible for monitoring /sys/class/power_supply for changes to active AC mains power online status. Enable keventd with configure --with-keventd
• For handling power fail events (from UPS and similar) a process may send SIGPWR to PID 1. Finit no longer redirects this to SIGUSR1 (poweroff). There is no default command for this, you need to set up a task that triggers on <sys/pwr/fail> to issue initctl poweroff
• Built-in Finit getty is now a standalone program
• Default termios for TTYs now enable IUTF8 on input
• If /bin/login is not found, Finit now tries sulogin before it falls back to an unauthenticated /bin/sh
• Dropped (broken) support for multiple consoles. Finit now follows the default console selected by the kernel, /dev/console
• Dropped signal handlers for SIGSTOP/TSTP and SIGCONT
• Added support for \n, in addition to \r, in "Please press Enter" prompt before starting getty
• Finit no longer parses /proc/cmdline for its options. Instead all options are by default now read from argv[], like a normal program, this is also what the kernel does by default. Please note, this may not work if your systems boots with an initramfs (ymmv), for such cases, see configure --enable-kernel-cmdline
• The following plugins are now possible to disable (for containers): rtc.so, urandom.so, you may also want to disable hotplug.so. They are all enabled by default, as in Finit 4.0, but may be moved to external tools or entries in finit.conf in Finit 5.0
• Added support for reading PRETTY_NAME from /etc/os-release to use as heading in progress output, unless --with-heading=GREET is used.
• Added manual pages for finit(8), initctl(8), and finit.conf(5)

Fixes

• Stricter interface name validation in netlink plugin, modeled after the kernel. Suggested by Coverity Scan

• Fix problem of re-registering a service as a task. Previously, if a fundamental change, like type, was made to an active service/run/task it did not take. Only possible workaround was to remove from config

• initctl: drop warning when removing a non-existing usr condition

• initctl: drop confusing errno 0 when timing out waiting for reply

• Ensure services in plugins and from Finit main belong to a cgroup

• Ensure init top-level cgroup remains a leaf group

• Fix tty parse error for detecting use of external getty

• Fix default name: and :ID for tty's, e.g. ttyS0 now gives tty:S0 as expected. This was default for built-in getty already

• Fix max username (32 chars) in bundled Finit getty

• The contrib/*/install.sh scripts failed to run from tarball

• Finit no longer forcibly mounts; /dev, /proc, or /sys, instead it checks first if they are already mounted (devtmpfs or container)

• Fix /etc/fstab parser to properly check for 'ro' to not remount the root filesystem at boot. The wrong field was read, so a root mounted by an initramfs, or by lxc for a container, had their root remounted

• Fix SIGCHLD handler, waitpd() may be interrupted by a signal

• Reset starting flag of services being stopped. When a service is started and then stopped before it has created its pid file, it could be left forever in the stopping state, unless we reset the starting flag.

• Fix #170: detect loss of default route when interfaces go down. This emulates the missing kernel netlink message to remove the condition net/default/route to allow stopping dependent services

• Fix #171: restore automatic mount of /dev/shm, /dev/pts, /run and /tmp, unless mounted already by /etc/fstab. This is what most desktop systems expect PID 1 to do. Here we also make sure to mount /run/lock as a tmpfs as well, with write perms for regular users, this prevents regular users from filling up /run and causing DoS.

• Fix #173: netlink plugin runs out of socket buffer space;

    finit[1]: nl_callback():recv(): No buffer space available
  

  Fixed by adding support for resync with kernel on ENOBUFS. See netlink(7) for details. As a spin-off the plugin now supports any number of interfaces and routes on a system. On resync, the following message is now logged, as a warning:

    finit[1]: nl_callback():busy system, resynchronizing with kernel.
  

• Fix #174: loss of log messages using combo of prio and facility, e.g., logit(LOG_CONSOLE | LOG_NOTICE, ...), by Jacques de Laval, Westermo

• Fix #175: ensure Finit does not acquire a controlling TTY when checking if a device is a TTY before starting a getty. This fixes an old bug where Ctrl-C after logout from a shell could cause PID 1 to get SIGINT, which in turn could lead to a system reboot

4.0 - 2021-04-26

This release became v4.0, and not v3.2, because of incompatible changes to service conditions. There are other significant changes as well, so make sure to read the whole change log when upgrading.

Changes

• The stand-alone reboot tool has been replaced with a symlink to initctl, like its siblings: halt, shutdown, poweroff, and suspend. Calling reboot & C:o now defaults to the corresponding initctl cmd with a fallback to sending signals as per traditional SysV init. The -f (force) flag remains, where reboot(2) is called directly
• Introducing Finit progress 𝓜𝓸𝓭𝓮𝓻𝓷
• The inictl cond set|clear COND have changed completely. Constrained to a flat <usr/...> namespace and automatically activated by a new usr.so plugin that checks services for usr condition changes
• Removed built-in inetd super server. If you need this functionality, use an external inetd, like xinetd, instead. A pull request for a stand-alone inetd, like watchdogd and getty, is most welcome!
• Incompatible configure script changes, i.e., no guessing --prefix and other paths. Also, many options have been changed, renamed, or flipped defaults, or even dropped altogether. There are examples in the documentation and the contrib/ section
• Service conditions change from the non-obvious <svc/path/to/foo> to <pid/foo:id>. Not only does this give simpler internal semantics, it hopefully also makes it clear that one service's pid:!foo pidfile is another service's <pid/foo> condition, issue #143
• Initial support for cgroups v2:
  • services runs in a cgroup named after their respective *.conf file
  • top-level groups are; init, user, and system
  • all top-level groups can be configured from finit *.conf files
  • each service can tweak the cgroup settings
  • Use initctl [top|ps|cgroup] commands to inspect runtime state
  • https://twitter.com/b0rk/status/1214341831049252870?s=20
• Major refactor of Finit's main() function to be able to start the event loop earlier. This also facilitated factoring out functionality previously hard-coded in Finit, e.g., starting the bundled watchdogd, various distro packed udevd and other hotplugging tools
• A proper rescue mode has been added. It is started extremely early and is protected with a bundled sulogin. Exiting rescue mode now brings up the system as a normal boot, as one expects
• Support for sysv start/stop scripts as well as monitoring forking services, stared using sysv or service stanza
• Support for custom kill:DELAY, default 3 sec.
• Support for custom halt:SIGNAL, default SIGTERM
• Support for pre:script and post:script, allows for setup and teardown/cleanup before and after a service runs, issue #129
• Support for env:file in /etc/default/foo or /etc/conf.d/foo, see the contrib section for examples that utilize this feature. Variables expanded from env files, and the env files themselves, are tracked for changes to see if a service .conf file is "dirty" and needs restart on initctl reload
• Support for tracking custom PID files, using pid:!/path/to/foo.pid, useful with new sysv or service which fork to background
• Support starting run/task/services without absolute path, trust $PATH
• Add support for --disable-doc and --disable-contrib to speed up builds and work around issue with massively parallel builds
• Support for @console also for external getty
• Support for notty option to built-in getty, for board bring-up
• Support for rescue option to built-in getty, for rescue shells
• Add -b, batch mode, for non-interactive use to initctl
• Prefer udev to handle /dev/ if mdev is also available
• Redirect dbus daemon output to syslog
• Set $SHELL, like $PATH, to a sane default value, needed by BusyBox
• Finit no longer automatically reloads its *.conf files after running /etc/rc.local or run-parts. Use initctl reload instead.
• initctl without an argument or option now defaults to list services
• Convert built-in watchdog daemon to standalone mini watchdogd, issue #102
• Improved watchdog hand-over, now based on svc_t and not PID
• Extended bootstrap, runlevel S, timeout: 10 --> 120 sec. before services not allowed in the runtime runlevel are unconditionally stopped
• Removed HOOK_SVC_START and HOOK_SVC_LOST, caused more problems than they were worth. Users are encouraged to use accounting instead
• Skip displaying "Restarting ..." progress for bootstrap processes
• Added a simple work queue mechanism to queue up work at boot + runtime
  • Postpone deletion of svc_t until any SIGKILL timer has elapsed
  • As long as a stepped service changes state we queue another step all event, because services may depend on each other
• Require new libuEv API: uev_init1() to reduce event cache so that the kernel can invalidate deleted events before enqueuing to userspace
• Rename hwclock.so plugin to rtc.so since it now is stand-alone from the hwclock tool. Note: the kernel can also be set to load and store RTC to/from system clock at boot/halt as well, issue #110
• New plugin to support cold plugging devices, auto-loading of modules at boot. Detects required modules by reading /sys/devices/*
• New plugin for /etc/modules-load.d/ by Robert Andersson, Atlas Copco
• New name:foo support for services, by Robert Andersson, Atlas Copco
• New manual:yes support for services, by Robert Andersson, Atlas Copco
• New log:console support for services, by Robert Andersson, Atlas Copco
• Support for :ID as a string, by Jonas Johansson, Westermo
• Support for auto-reload, instead of having to do initctl reload, when a service configuration has changed. Disabled by default, but can be enabled with ./configure --enable-auto-reload
• Support for logging security related events, e.g., runlevel change, star/stop or failure to start services, by Jonas Holmberg, Westermo
• Mount devtpts with recommended ptxmode=0666
• Mount /run tmpfs with nosuid,nodev,noexec for added security
• Support for console as alias for @console in tty stanzas
• Drop --enable-rw-roots configure option, use rw for your / partition in /etc/fstab instead to trigger remount at boot
• Drop default tty speed (38400) and use 0 (kernel default) instead
• Make :ID optional, use NULL/zero internally this allows ...
• Handle use-cases where multiple services share the same PID filem and thus the same condition path, e.g. different instances for different runlevels. Allow custom condition path with name:foo syntax, creates conditions w/o a path, and ...
• Always append :ID qualifier to conditions if set for a service
• The IPC socket has moved from /run/finit.sock to /run/finit/socket officially only supported for use by the initctl tool
• The IPC socket now uses SOCK_SEQPACKET instead of SOCK_STREAM. Recommend using watchdogd v3.4, or later, which support this
• Improved support for modern /etc/network/interfaces, which has include statements. No more native ifup of individual interfaces, Finit now calls ifup -a, or ifdown -a, delegating all details to the operating system. Also, this is now done in the background, by popular request

Fixes

• Fix #96: Start udevd as a proper service
• Ensure we track run commands as well as task/service, once per runlevel
• Ensure run/tasks also go to stopping state on exit, like services, otherwise it is unnecessarily hard to restart them
• Fix missing OS/Finit title bug, adds leading newline before banner
• Remove "Failed connecting to watchdog ..." error message on systems that do not have a watchdog
• Fix #100: Early condition handling may not work if /var/run does not yet exist (symlink to /run). Added compat layer for access
• Fix #101: Built-in inetd removed
• Fix #102: Start built-in watchdogd as a regular service
• Fix #103: Register multiple getty if @console resolves to >1 TTY,
• Fix #105: Only remove /etc/nologin when moving from runlevel 0, 1, 6 Fixed by Jonas Johansson, Westermo
• Fix #109: Support for PID files in sub-directories to /var/run
• Handle rename of PID files, by Robert Andersson, Atlas Copco
• Fix #110: automatic modprobe of RTC devices, built-in hwclock
• Fix #120: Redirect stdin to /dev/null for services by default
• Fix #122: Switch to nanosleep() to achieve "signal safe" sleep, fixed by Jacques de Laval, Westermo
• Fix #124: Lingering processes in process group when session leader exits. E.g., lingering logit processes when parent dies
• Fix #127: Show all runparts scripts as they start, like rc.local, fixed by Jacques de Laval, Westermo
• Fix service name matching, e.g. for condition handling, may match with wrong service, by Jonas Holmberg, Westermo
• Run all run-parts scripts using /bin/sh -c foo just like the standard run-parts tool. Found by Magnus Malm, Westermo
• Fix initctl [start | restart], should behave the same for services that have crashed. Found by Mattias Walström, Westermo
• Wait for bootstrap phase to complete before cleaning out any bootstrap processes that have stopped, they may be restarted again
• Reassert condition when an unmodified run/task/service goes from WAITING back to RUNNING again after a reconfiguration event.
  Found and fixed by Jonas Johansson, Westermo
• Restore Ctrl-D and Ctrl-U support in built-in getty
• Remove service condition when service is deleted
• Fix C++ compilation issues, by Robert Andersson, Atlas Copco
• Build fixes for uClibc
• Provide service description for built-in watchdog daemon
• Fix #138: Handle SIGPWR like SIGSUR2, i.e., power off the system
• Drop the '%m' GNUism, for compat with older musl libc
• Fix #139: call tzset() on initctl reload to activate system timezone changes (for logging)

3.1 - 2018-01-23

Improvements to netlink.so plugin, per-service rlimit support, improved integration with watchdogd, auto-detect TTY console. Much improved debug, rescue and logging support. Also, many fixes to both big and small issues, most notably in the condition handling, which no longer is sensitive to time skips.

This version requires at least libuEv v2.1.0 and libite v2.0.1

Changes

• Support for more kernel command line settings:
  • splash, enable boot progress
  • debug, like --debug but also enable kernel debug
  • single, single user mode (no network)
  • rescue, new rescue mode
• Support for IFF_RUNNING to netlink plugin => net/IFNAME/running
• Support for restarting initctl API socket on SIGHUP
• Greatly updated initctl status <JOB|NAME> command
• Support for rlimit per service/run/task/inetd/tty, issue #45
• Support for setting hard and soft rlimit for a resource at once
• Support for auto-detecting serial console using Linux SysFS, the new tty @console eliminates the need to keep track of different console devices across embedded platforms: /dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyAMA0, etc.
• Add TTY nologin option. Bypasses login and skips immediately to a root shell. Useful during board bringup, in developer builds, etc.
• Support for calling run/tasks on Finit internal HOOK points, issue #18
• Removed support for long-since deprecated console DEV setting
• Cosmetic change to login, pressing enter at the Press enter to ... prompt will now replace that line with the login issue text
• Calling initctl without any arguments or options now defaults to show status of all enabled services, and run/task/inetd jobs
• Cosmetic change to boot messages, removed Loading plugins ..., start of inetd services, and Loading configuration .... No end user knows what those plugins and configurations are, i.e. internal state+config
• Change kernel WDT timeout (3 --> 30 sec) for built-in watchdog daemon
• Advise watchdog dawmon on shutdown and reboot using SIGPWR and then SIGTERM. It is recommended the daemon start a timer on the first signal, in case the shutdown process somehow hangs.
• Handle /etc/ OverlayFS, reload /etc/finit.d/*.conf after mount -a
• initctl: Add support for printing previous runlevel
• initctl: Support short forms of all commands
• initctl: Support for initctl touch <CONF> to be used with reload
• initctl: Improved output of initctl show <SVC>
• Support reloading /etc/finit.conf. The main finit.conf file previously did not support reloading at runtime, as of v3.1 all configuration directives supported in /etc/finit.d/*.conf are now supported in /etc/finit.conf
• Change .conf dependency + reload handling. Finit no longer relies on mtime of .conf files, instead an inotify handler tracks file changes for time insensitive dependency tracking
• Change condition handling to not rely on mtime but a generation id.
• New configure script option --enable-redirect to automatically redirect stdout and stderr of all applications to /dev/null
• New pid sub-option to services when a service does not create a PID file, or when the PID file has another name. Issue #95
• Greatly improved log sub-option to service/run/tasks, selectively redirect stdout and stderr using the new tool logit to either syslog or a logfile. Issue #44
• Support for automatic log rotation of logfiles created by log option. Use configure --disable-logrotate on systems with a dedicated log rotation service. Issue #44
• Support for disabling service/run/task progress with empty -- description. Note: no description separator gives a default desc.
• Create /etc/mtab symlink if missing on system (bootmisc plugin)
• New hook: hook/mount/post runs after mount -a but before the hook/mount/all, where bootmisc.so runs. This provides the possibility of running a second stage mount command before files in /run and similar are created
• Skip gdbserver when unleashing the grim reaper at shutdown
• Distribute and install doc/ and contrib/ directories

Fixes

• Reset TTY before restarting it. A program may manipulate the TTY in various ways before the user logs out, Finit needs to reset the TTY to a sane state before restarting it. Issue #84
• On .conf parse errors, do not default to set TTY speed 38400, reuse current TTY speed instead
• Fix run/tasks, must be guaranteed to run once per declared runlevel. All run/tasks on [S] with a condition <...> failed to run. Finit now tracks run/tasks more carefully, waiting for them to finish before switching to the configured runlevel at boot. Issue #86
• Allow inetd services to be registered with a unique ID, e.g. :161, issue #87. Found by Westermo
• inetd: drop UDP packets from blocked interfaces, issue #88
• Handle obscure inter-plugin dependency issue by calling the netlink plugin before the pidfile plugin on HOOK_SVC_RECONF events
• Handle event loop failure modes, issue found by Westermo
• Handle API socket errors more gracefully, restart socket
• Do not attempt to load kernel modules more than once at bootstrap
• Remove reboot symlinks properly on uninstall
• Fix regression in condition handling, reconf condition must be kept as a reference point to previous reconfiguration, or bootstrap.
• Fix nasty race condition with internal service stop, abort kill if the service has already terminated, otherwise we may do kill(0, SIGKILL)
• Fix reconfiguration issue with (very quick) systems that don't have highres timers
• Fix formatting of runlevel string in initctl show
• Allow running initctl with STDOUT redirected
• Fix regression in initctl start/stop <ID>, using name worked not id
• Fix error handling in initctl start/stop without any argument
• Fix issue #81 properly, remove use of SYSV shm IPC completely. Finit now use the API socket for all communication between PID 1 and initctl
• Fix segfault on x86_64 when started with kernel cmdline --debug
• Normalize condition paths on systems with /run instead of /var/run

3.0 - 2017-10-19

Major release, support for conditions/dependencies between services, optional built-in watchdog daemon, optional built-in getty, optional built-in standard inetd services like echo server, rdate, etc.

Also, native support for Debian/BusyBox /etc/network/interfaces, overhauled new configure based build system, logging to /dev/kmsg before syslogd has started, massively improved support for Linux distributions.

Changes

• Added basic code of conduct covenant to project

• Added contribution guidelines document

• Removed finit.conf option check DEV, replaced entirely by automated call to fsck for each device listed in /etc/fstab

• Removed deprecated and confusing startx and user settings. It is strongly recommended to instead use xdm/gdb/lightdm etc.

• Add support for initctl log <SVC>, shows last 10 lines from syslog

• Add initctl cond dump for debugging conditions

• Ensure plugins always have a default name, file name

• Reorganization, move all source files to a src/ sub-directory

• Add support for initctl <list|enable|disable> <SVC>, much needed by distributions. See doc/distro.md for details

• Remove UNUSED() macro, mentioned here because it may have been used by external plugin developers. Set -Wno-unused-parameter instead

• New table headings in initctl, using top style inverted text

• Allow initctl show to use full screen width for service descriptions

• New HOOK_BANNER for plugins to override the default banner()

• Allow loading TTYs from /etc/finit.d

• Improvements to built-in getty, ignore signals like SIGINT, SIGHUP, support Ctrl-U to erase to beginning of line

• Add TTY nowait and noclear options

• Allow using both built-in getty and external getty:

    tty [12345] /dev/ttyAMA0    115200              noclear vt220
    tty [12345] /sbin/getty  -L 115200 /dev/ttyAMA0 vt100
    tty [12345] /sbin/agetty -L ttyAMA0 115200      vt100 nowait
  

• Silent boot is now the default, use --enable-progress to get the old Finit style process progress. I.e., --enable-silent is no more

• Support for configure --enable-emergency-shell, debug-only mode

• Support for a fallback shell on console if none of the configured TTYs can be started, configure --enable-fallback-shell

• All debug messages to console when Finit --debug is enabled

• Prevent login, by touching /etc/nologin, during runlevel changes

• A more orderly shutdown. On reboot/halt/poweroff Finit now properly goes to runlevel 0/6 to first stop all processes.

• Perform sync before remounting as read-only, at shutdown

• Clean up /tmp, /var/run, and /var/lock at boot on systems which have these directories on persistent storage

• Call udev triggers at boot, on systems with udev

• Add missing /var/lock/subsys directory for dbus

• Add support for poweroff

• Add support for a built-in miniature watchdog daemon

• Remove GLIBC:isms like __progname

• Manage service states based on user defined conditions

• Manage dependencies between services, w/ conditions (pidfile plugin)

• Manage service dependencies on network events (netlink plugin)

• Support for dynamically reloading Finit configuration at runtime

• Refactor to use GNU configure and build system

• New hooks for for detecting lost and started services (lost plugin)

• External libraries, libuEv and libite, now build requirements

• Early logging support to /dev/kmsg instead of console

• Support for redirecting stdout/stderr of services to syslog

• Support for managing resource limits for Finit and its processes

• Add optional built-in inetd services: echo server, chargen, etc.

• Add simple built-in getty

• Greatly improved accounting support, both UTMP and WTMP fixes+features

• Improved udev support, on non-embedded systems

• Improved shutdown and file-system unmount support (Debian)

• Support SysV init /etc/rc.local

• Inetd protection against UDP looping attacks

• Support systems with /run instead of /var/run (bootmisc plugin)

• Adopted BusyBox init signals for halt/reboot/poweroff

• SysV init compat support for reboot (setenv)

• Compat support for musl libc

• Add OpenRC-like support for sysctl.d/*.conf

• Add support for Debian/BusyBox /etc/network/interfaces

• Add support for running fsck on file systems in /etc/fstab

• Added example configs + HowTos for Debian and Alpine Linux to support latest releases of both distributions

• Lots of documentation updates

Fixes

• Fix race-condition at configuration reload due to too low resolution.
  Thanks to Mattias Walström, Westermo
• Fix to handle long process (PID) dependency chains, re-run reconf callback until no more applications are in flux.
  Thanks to Mattias Walström, Westermo
• Clear reconf condition when initctl reload has finished
• Skip automatic reload of /etc/finit.d/*.conf files when changing runlevel to halt or reboot
• Fix issue #54: Allow halt and poweroff commands even if watchdog is enabled
• Fix issue #56: Check existence of device before trying to start getty
• Fix issue #60: initctl should display error and return error code for non-existing services should the operator try to start/stop them.
• Fix issue #61: Reassert net/* conditions after initctl reload
• Fix issue #64: Skip fsck on already mounted devices
• Fix issue #66: Log rotate and gzip /var/log/wtmp, created by Finit
• Fix issue #72: Check ifup exists before trying to bring up networking, also set $PATH earlier to simplify run() et al -- no longer any need to use absolute paths for system tools called from Finit. Thanks to crazy
• Fix issue #73: Remove double ntohl() in inetd handling, prevents matches.
  Thanks to Petrus Hellgren, Westermo
• Fix issue #76: Reap zombie processes in emergency shell mode
• Fix issue #80: FTBFS on Arch Linux, missing stdarg.h in helpers.h, thanks to Jörg Krause
• Fix issue #81: Workaround for systems w/o SYSV shm IPC support in kernel
• Always collect bootstrap-only tasks when done, we will never re-run them. Also, make sure to never reload bootstrap-only tasks at runtime
• Remove two second block (!) of Finit when stopping TTYs

2.4 - 2015-12-04

Bug fix release.

Changes

• Add support for status/show service by name:id
• Enforce terse mode after boot, if verbose mode is disabled
• Re-enable verbose mode at reboot, if disabled at boot
• Update section mentioning BusyBox getty
• Update debugging documentation
• Allow debug to override terse mode
• Revert confusing change in service state introduced in v2.3. As of v2.4 services are listed as "halted" and "stopped", when they have been halted due to a runlevel changed or stopped by the user, respectively.

Fixes

• Fix system freeze at reconfiguration. Changed services that all support SIGHUP caused a freeze due to Finit waiting for them to stop.
• Make sure to start and/or SIGHUP services after reconfiguration when there was no services to stop.

2.3 - 2015-11-28

Bug fix release.

Changes

• Add support for stop/start/restart/reload service by name:id
• Refactor service status listed in initctl show, show actual status

Fixes

• Remove bootstrap-only tasks/services when leaving runlevel 'S'
• Fix reference counting issue with already stopped and removed services when the user performs initctl reload to change system configuration
• Revert semantic change in behavior of initctl restart: users expect service to be stopped/started, not reloaded with SIGHUP even if the service supports it
• Fix NULL pointer dereference causing kernel panic when user calls initctl reload after change of system configuration
• Fix column alignment in output of initctl show for services not in current runlevel

2.2 - 2015-11-23

Lots of fixes to handle static builds, but also fixes for dynamic event handling and reconfiguration at runtime.

Changes

• Upgrade to libuEv v1.2.4, to handle static builds
• Upgrade to libite (LITE) v1.2.0, to handle static builds
• Clarify how to select different plugins with the configure script
• Improve urandom plugin for embedded systems w/o random seed
• Add --debug flag to initctl
• The runlevels listed for services in initctl show now highlight the active runlevel.
• Clarify in the README and in initctl help that the GW event to listen for in service declarations is GW:UP

Fixes

• Build fixes for configure --disable-inetd
• Fixed issue #14: Improved support for static Finit builds
• Misc. fixes to silence warnings when building a static Finit
• Default to register services as SIGHUP'able, regression in v2.0
• Call HOOK_SVC_RECONF only when all processes have been stopped
• On reload/reconf we must wait for all services to stop first
• Only trigger on events that matches the service's specification, fix by Tobias Waldekranz

2.1 - 2015-10-16

Changes

• Add hook point for fstab mount failure
• Set hostname on dynamic reload
• Upgrade to libite v1.1.1

Fixes

• Fix service callback coredump checks and simplify callback exit
• Do not use -Os use -O2 as default optimization level. Many cross compiler toolchains are known to have problems with -Os
• Do not allow build VERSION to be overloaded by an environment variable
• Fix too small MAX arguments and too few arguments in svc_t for reading currently running services with initctl show
• Unblock blocked signals after forking off a child

2.0 - 2015-09-20

Support for multiple instances and event based services, as well as the introduction of an initctl tool.

Note: Incompatible change to syntax for custom inetd services, c.f. Finit v1.12.

Changes

• The most notable change is the support for multiple instances. A must have when running multiple DHCP clients, OpenVPN tunnels, or anything that means using the same command only with different arguments. Now simply add a :ID after the service keyword, where ID is a unique instance number for that service.

    service :1 [2345] /sbin/httpd -f -h /http -p 80   -- Web server
    service :2 [2345] /sbin/httpd -f -h /http -p 8080 -- Old web server
  

• Another noteworthy new feature is support for starting/stopping services on Netlink events:

    service :1 [2345] <!IFUP:eth0,GW> /sbin/dropbear -R -F -p 22 -- SSH daemon
  

  Here the first instance :1 of the SSH daemon is declared to run in runlevels 2-5, but only if eth0 IFUP:eth0 is up and a gateway GW is set. When the configuration changes, a new gateway is set, or if somehow a new IFUP event for eth0 is received, then dropbear is not SIGHUP'ed, but instead stop-started <!>. The latter trick applies to all services, even those that do not define any events.

• Support for reloading *.conf files in /etc/finit.d/ on SIGHUP. All task, service and run statements can be used in these .conf files. Use the telinit q command, initctl reload or simply send SIGHUP to PID 1 to reload them. Finit automatically does reload of these *.conf files when changing runlevel.

• Support for a modern initctl tool which can stop/start/reload and list status of all system services. Also, the old client tool used to change runlevel is now also available as a symlink: telinit.

    initctl [-v] <status|stop|start|reload|restart> [JOB]
  

• Add concept of "jobs". This is a unique identifier, composed of a service and instance number, SVC:ID

    initctl <stop|start|reload|restart> JOB
  

• Support for deny filters in inetd services.

    inetd service/proto[@iface,!iface,...] </path/to/cmd | internal[.service]>
  

  Internal services on a custom port must use the internal.service syntax so Finit can properly bind the inetd service to the correct plugin. Here follows a few examples:

    inetd time/udp                    wait [2345] internal                -- UNIX rdate service
    inetd time/tcp                  nowait [2345] internal                -- UNIX rdate service
    inetd 3737/tcp                  nowait [2345] internal.time           -- UNIX rdate service
    inetd telnet/tcp@*,!eth1,!eth0, nowait [2345] /sbin/telnetd -i -F     -- Telnet service
    inetd 2323/tcp@eth1,eth2,eth0   nowait [2345] /sbin/telnetd -i -F     -- Telnet service
    inetd 222/tcp@eth0              nowait [2345] /sbin/dropbear -i -R -F -- SSH service
    inetd ssh/tcp@*,!eth0           nowait [2345] /sbin/dropbear -i -R -F -- SSH service
  

  Access to telnet on port 2323 is only possible from interfaces eth0, eth1 and eth2. The standard telnet port (23) is available from all other interfaces, but also eth2. The * notation used in the ssh stanza means any interface, however, here eth0 is not allowed.

  NOTE: This change breaks syntax compatibility with Finit v1.12.

• Support for a more user-friendly configure script rather than editing the top Makefile, or setting environment variables at build time.

• Support for building Finit statically, no external libraries. This unfortunately means that some plugins cannot be built, at all. Big thanks goes to James Mills for all help testing this out!

• Support for disabling the built-in inetd server with configure.

• Support for two new hook points: HOOK_SVC_RECONF and HOOK_RUNLEVEL_CHANGE. See the source for the exact location.

• The include <FILE> option now needs an absolute path to FILE.

Fixes

• Rename patches/ to contrib/ to simplify integration in 3rd party build systems.
• Fix for unwanted zombies ... when receiving SIGCHLD we must reap all children. We only receive one signal, but multiple processes may have exited and need to be collected.

1.12 - 2015-03-04

The inetd release.

Changes

• Add support for built-in inetd super server -- launch services on demand. Supports filtering per interface and custom Inet ports.
• Upgrade to libuEv v1.1.0 to better handle error conditions.
• Allow mixed case config directives in finit.conf
• Add support for RFC 868 (rdate) time plugin, start as inetd service.
• Load plugins before parsing finit.conf, this makes it possible to extend finit even with configuration commands. E.g., the time.so plugin must be loaded for the inetd time/tcp internal service to be accepted when parsing finit.conf.
• Slight change in TTY fallback behavior, if no TTY is listed in the system finit.conf first inspect the console setting and only if that too is unset fall back to /bin/sh
• When falling back to the console TTY or /bin/sh, finit now marks this fallback as console. Should improve usability in some use cases.

Fixes

• Revert "Use vfork() instead of fork() before exec()" from v1.11. It turned out to not work so well after all. For instance, launching TTYs in a background process completely blocked inetd services from even starting up listening sockets ... proper fork seems to work fine though. This is the cause for yanking the 1.11 release, below.
• Trap segfaults caused by external plugins/callbacks in a sub-process. This prevents a single programming mistake in by a 3rd party developer from taking down the entire system.
• Fix Coverity CID 56281: dlopen() resource leak by storing the pointer. For the time being we do not support unloading plugins.
• Set hostname early, so bootstrap processes like syslog can use it.
• Only restart lost daemons when recovering from a SIGSTOP/norespawn.

1.11 - 2015-01-24 [YANKED]

The libuEv release.

Note: This release has been yanked from distribution due to a regression in launching background processes and TTY's. Fixed in Finit v1.12.

Changes

• Now using the asynchronous libuEv library for handling all events: signals, timers and listening to sockets or file descriptors.
• Rename NEWS.md --> CHANGELOG.md, with symlinks for make install
• Attempt to align with http://keepachangelog.com/ for this file.
• Travis CI now only invokes Coverity Scan from the 'dev' branch. This means that all development, except documentation updates, must go into that branch.

Fixes

• Fix bug with finit dying when no tty is defined in finit.conf, now even the fallback shell has control over its TTY, see fix in GIT commit dea3ae8 for this.

1.10 - 2014-11-27

Major bug fix release.

Changes

• Project now relies on static code analysis from Coverity, so this release contains many serious bug fixes.
• Convert to use Markdown for README, NEWS and TODO.
• Serious update to README and slight pruning of finished TODO items.

Fixes

• Fix serious file descriptor and memory leaks in the following functions. In particular the leaks in run_interactive() are very serious since that function is called every time a service is started and/or restarted! For details, see the GIT log:
  • helpers.c:run()
  • helpers.c:run_interactive()
  • helpers.c:set_hostname()
  • helpers.c:procname_kill()
• svc.c:svc_start(): Fix swapped arguments to dup2() and add close(fd) to prevent descriptor leak.
• svc.c:svc_start(): Fix out of bounds write to local stack variable, wrote off-by-one outside array.
• Several added checks for return values to mknod(), mkdir(), remove(), etc.

1.9 - 2014-04-21

Changes

• Add support for an include directive to .conf files
• Fallback to /bin/sh if user forgets tty setting
• Initial support for restarting lost services during norespwan

Fixes

• Bug fixes, code cleanup
• Handle SIGHUP from service callback properly when switching runlevel
• Misc. major (memleak) and minor fixes and additions to libite/lite.h

1.8 - 2013-06-07

Changes

• Support for runlevels, with a bootstrap runlevel 'S'
• Support for saving previous and current runlevel to UTMP
• Support for new finit.conf commands: run, task, and runlevel
• Support for tty and console commands in finit.conf, like services but for launching multiple getty logins
• New tty plugin to monitor TTYs coming and going, like USB TTYs

Fixes

• Bugfixes to libite

1.7 - 2012-10-08

Changes

• Show __FILE__ in _d() debug messages, useful for plugins with similarly named callbacks. Also, only in debug mode anyway
• Make sure to cleanup recorded PID when a service is lost. Required by service plugins for their callbacks to work.
• Only clear screen when in verbose mode. Maybe this should be removed altogether?

Fixes

• Bugfix: Do not free() static string in finit.conf parser

1.6 - 2012-10-06

Changes

• Skip . and .. in plugin loader and display error when failing to load plugins
• Support for overriding /etc/finit.d with runparts DIR in finit.conf
• Revoke support for starting services not starting with a slash.
• Prevent endless restart of non-existing services in finit.conf
• Support for sysvinit style startstop scripts in /etc/finit.d

Fixes

• Minor fix to alsa-utils plugin to silence on non-existing cards

1.5 - 2012-10-03

Changes

• Use bootmisc plugin to setup standard FHS 2.3 structure in /var
• Added FLOG_WARN() syslog macro, for plugins
• Add plugin dependency resolver. Checks plugin_t for .depends

1.4 - 2012-10-02

Changes

• Start refactoring helpers.c into a libite.so (-lite). This means other user space applications/daemons can make use of the neat toolbox available in finit
• Use short-form -s/-w -u to work with BusyBox hwclock as well
• Use RTLD_GLOBAL flag to tell dynamic loader to load dependent .so files as well. Lets other plugins use global symbols.
• Greatly simplify svc hook for external plugins and cleanup plugin API.
• And more ... see the GIT log for more details.

Fixes

• Fix I/O plugin watcher and load plugins earlier for a new hook

1.3 - 2012-09-28

Changes

• Cleanup public plugin API a bit and add new pid/pidfile funcs
• Add plugin hook to end of service startup
• Remove finit.h from svc.h, plugins should not need this.
• Move utility macros etc. to helpers.h
• Make finit.h daemon internal, only
• Move defines of FIFO, conf and rcS.d to Makefile => correct paths
• Add support for installing required headers in system include dir
• Better support for distributions and packagers with install-exec, install-data, and install-dev targets in Makefile. Useful if you want to call targets with different $DESTDIR!
• Makefile fixes for installation, paths encoded wrong
• Strip binaries + .so files, support for $(CROSS) toolchain strip
• Default install is now to /sbin/finit and /usr/
• Note change in $PLUGIN_DIR environment variable to $plugindir

1.2 - 2012-09-27

Changes

• Update README with section on building and environment variables

Fixes

• Fix installation paths encoded in finit binary

1.1 - 2012-09-27

Changes

• Rename signal.[ch]-->sig.[ch] to avoid name clash w/ system headers

Fixes

• Build fixes for ARM eabi/uClibc

1.0 - 2012-09-26

Changes

• New plugin based system for all odd extensions
• New service monitor that restarts services if they die
• New maintainer at GitHub http://github.com/troglobit/finit
• Add standard LICENSE and AUTHORS files
• New focus: embedded systems and small headless servers

0.6 - 2010-06-14

• Don't start consolekit manually, dbus starts it (rtp)
• Unmount all filesystems before rebooting
• Disable USE_VAR_RUN_RESOLVCONF for Mandriva
• Unset terminal type in Mandriva before running X
• Remove extra sleep in finit-alt before calling services.sh (caio)

0.5 - 2008-08-21

• Add option to start dbus and consolekit before the X server
• finit-alt listens to /dev/initctl to work with reboot(8) (smurfy)
• Write runlevel to utmp, needed by Printerdrake (Pascal Terjan)
• Fix ownership of /var/run/utmp (reported by Pascal Terjan)
• Remove obsolete code to load AGP drivers
• Conditional build of /etc/resolveconf/run support
• Add support to /var/run/resolvconf in Mandriva (blino)

0.4 - 2008-05-16

• Default username for finit-alt configurable in Makefile
• Create loopback device node in finit-alt (for squashfs)
• Add option to use built-in run-parts instead of /bin/run-parts
• Ignore signal instead of setting to an empty handler (Metalshark)
• Handle pam_console permissions in finit-alt for Mandriva
• Add services.sh example and nash-hotplug patch for Mandriva
• Mount /proc/bus/usb in Mandriva
• Add runtime debug to finit-alt if finit_debug parameter is specified
• Read configuration from /etc/finit.conf
• Run getty with openvt on the virtual terminal

0.3 - 2008-02-23

• Change poweroff method to reboot(RB_POWER_OFF) (Metalshark)
• Remove duplicate unionctl() reimplementation error
• Fix string termination in path creation
• Mount /var/lock and /var/run as tmpfs

0.2 - 2008-02-19

• Replace system("touch") with touch() in finit-mod (Metalshark)
• Disable NO_HCTOSYS by default to match stock Eeepc kernel
• Drop system("rm -f") to clean /tmp, its a fresh mounted tmpfs
• Write ACPI sleep state to /sys/power/state instead of /proc/acpi/sleep (Metalshark)
• Use direct calls to set loopback instead of system("ifconfig")
• Replace system("cat") and system("dd") with C implementation
• Moved finit-mod and finit-alt helpers to helpers.c
• Replace system("echo;cat") to draw shutdown splash with C calls

0.1 - 2008-02-14

• Initial release