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finit/ChangeLog.md
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2022-01-10 21:49:24 +01:00

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Change Log

All relevant changes are documented in this file.

4.2

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

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

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 suslogin. 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