Finit v3.0

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

Finit v3.0-rc2

Second pre-release,

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

Finit v3.0-rc1

• 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
• Improvide shutdown and file-system unmount support (Debian)
• Added --enable-emergency-shell (configure) fallback debug mode
• 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 (Jessie) and Alpine Linux

Finit v2.4

Bug fix release.

Changes

• Add support for status/show service by name:id
• Enforce terse mode after boot, if verbose mode is disabled
• Reenable 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.

Finit v2.3

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

Finit v2.2

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 hightlight 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

Finit v2.1

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 argments in svc_t for
  reading currently running services with initctl show
• Unblock blocked signals after forking off a child

Finit v2.0

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.

Finit v1.12

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 casue 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.

Finit v1.11 [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 the ChangeLog
• 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.