Change Log

All relevant changes are documented in this file.

4.8 - Next release

Changes

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

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
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 aslo been added. It in turn can be used by factory.conf as follows to override /etc/finit.d:
```
  rcsd /etc/factory.d
```
Support for overriding /etc/finit.d from the alternate finit.conf with a new rcsd /path/to/dot.d/ .conf file directive
Support for fsck_mode=[auto,skip,force] + fsck_repair=[preen,no,yes]
Add set keyword for environment variables set in /etc/finit.conf
Support finit.cond=foo cmdline <boot/foo> conditions, issue #250

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

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

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

Add JSON support to initctl ls command

This allows for easy access to the disabled services:

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

Allow manual:yes on sysv/service/run/task stanzas, issue #274
Add support for oncrash:script to call the post:script action, if defined, for a crashing service. The EXIT_CODE variable sent to the script is set to crashed. Issue #282
Search for plugins in /usr and /usr/local as well, issue #284
tty: add support for passenv flag to /bin/login, issue #286
Add reboot/shutdown/poweroff timeout -t SEC to initctl, issue #295
Add support for s6 and systemd readiness notification, issue #299.
Service readiness notification to support daemons employing systemd and s6 notification. Complementing the native Finit readiness support using PID files that exist already.

The two have slightly different ways of implementing readiness:
- https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/sd_notify.html
- https://skarnet.org/software/s6/notifywhenup.html
Finit now provides both a NOTIFY_SOCKET environment variable, for systemd, and a way to start s6 daemons with a descriptor argument.

For details on the syntax, see the service documentation.

This change also renames internal states for run/task/services to avoid any confusion with the introduction of ready:scripts:
- WAITING -> PAUSED
- READY -> WAITING
A service condition that used, e.g., <service/foo/ready> should now instead use <service/foo/waiting>
Add ready:script for services, called when daemon is ready, issue #300
Add support for running scripts at shutdown at two new hook points during the shutdown process, issue #302. See doc/plugins.md for details:
- HOOK_SVC_DN: after all services and non-reserved processes have been killed (and collected)
- HOOK_SYS_DN: after all file systems have been unmounted, just prior to Finit calling reboot() to shut down or reboot the system
The modules-load plugin now default to runlevel [S], in previous releases it was [2345]. This breaking change is to align it more with what users mostly want (modules loaded before services start) and can be changed back to the old behavior with a per-file setting:
```
  set runlevel 2345
```
The modules-load plugin now adds silent tasks for modprobe. This to prevent confusing [ OK ] boot messages when in fact modprobe failed.
The modules-load plugin now support set modprobe /path/to/modprobe
The header files finit/conf.h and finit/service.h are now exported for external plugins
Add support for multiple args to initctl cond set/clr, issue #329
Silence confusing [ OK ] progress from modules-load plugin, issue #332

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

Not all Linux systems are based on Debian, and even if they are inspired by Debian (Buildroot), they do not necessarily use the same defaults. Probes the system at runtime for:
- dbus user and group
- dbus PID file
If the user/group cannot be found we fall back to root, if the PID file cannot be determined we ignore PID file readiness.
Improve documentation for runparts and hook scripts. Issue #315, #320
Add HOOK_NETWORK_DN, called after change to runlevel 6 or 0, issue #319
Use sysklogd logger tool instead of legacy logit tool, issue #344

For log redirection Finit has the legacy logit tool. This change allows Finit to use the sysklogd project's extended logger tool instead, when available. Allowing logging with the process' PID.
Add initctl aliases: cat -> show, kill -> signal
Add initctl -n,--noerr to return 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 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

Files

ChangeLog.md

Latest commit

History

ChangeLog.md

File metadata and controls

Change Log

4.8 - Next release

Changes

Fixes

4.7 - 2024-01-07

Changes

Fixes

4.6 - 2023-11-13

Changes

Fixes

4.5 - 2023-10-30

Changes

Fixes

4.4 - 2023-05-15

Changes

Fixes

4.3 - 2022-05-15

Changes

Fixes

4.2 - 2022-01-16

Changes

Fixes

4.1 - 2021-06-06

Changes

Fixes

4.0 - 2021-04-26

Changes

Fixes

3.1 - 2018-01-23

Changes

Fixes

3.0 - 2017-10-19

Changes

Fixes

2.4 - 2015-12-04

Changes

Fixes

2.3 - 2015-11-28

Changes

Fixes

2.2 - 2015-11-23

Changes

Fixes

2.1 - 2015-10-16

Changes

Fixes

2.0 - 2015-09-20

Changes

Fixes

1.12 - 2015-03-04

Changes

Fixes

1.11 - 2015-01-24 [YANKED]

Changes

Fixes

1.10 - 2014-11-27

Changes

Fixes

1.9 - 2014-04-21

Changes

Fixes

1.8 - 2013-06-07

Changes

Fixes

1.7 - 2012-10-08

Changes

Fixes

1.6 - 2012-10-06

Changes

Fixes

1.5 - 2012-10-03

Changes

1.4 - 2012-10-02

Changes