Finit v4.9

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

Finit v4.9-rc1

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 #422: honor notfail flag 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

Finit v4.8

Changes

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

Fixes

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

Finit v4.7

Changes

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

Fixes

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

Finit v4.6

Changes

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

Fixes

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

Finit v4.5

Changes

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

Fixes

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

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

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

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

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

• Fix #372: lost udevadm calls due to overloading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finit v4.5-rc5

Changes

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

Fixes

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

Finit v4.5-rc4

Changes

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

Fixes

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

Finit v4.5-rc3

Changes

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

Fixes

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

Finit v4.5-rc2

Changes

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

Fixes

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