Ubuntu Wiki

• Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/replacement-init

• Created: Date(2005-10-06T18:49:39Z) by JaneWeideman

• Contributors: ScottJamesRemnant

• Packages affected:

Summary

Investigate alternatives to the SysV-style init we use in Ubuntu today, and discuss whether there is an advantage to replacing it with one of them.

Rationale

While sysvinit covers the basic job of starting and shutting down a system, it doesn't do much else and isn't that flexible. Alternative systems offer such features as service management, status discovery, parallel startup based on dependencies, better integration with other UNIX services such as cron, better user interface via dbus, etc.

A replacement system may also be better suited to starting and stopping services based on connected hardware, e.g. only running cups while there is a printer connected, etc.

As edgy is a time to try new and exciting technologies, now is the time to find out whether we can do better than sysvinit.

Use cases

Scope

Design

Implementation

Code

Data preservation and migration

Outstanding issues

BoF agenda and discussion

• file-rc, already packaged in Universe

• init-ng - http://www.initng.org/

• runit - http://smarden.org/runit/

• Apple launchd - http://developer.apple.com/macosx/launchd.html

• Sun smf - http://opensolaris.org/os/community/smf/ - maybe just extend sysvinit with this?

• Fedora discussion - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FCNewInit

• upstart - do it ourselves and take the best bits from all of the above

TimoAaltonen: Here is a chance to make sure that we don't diverge too much from the rest of the world. In that regard, I think launchd/smf/fcnewinit is the way to go, and if you take only the linux-world you can drop launchd/smf (besides, they should be reimplemented because of the licenses)... I don't know how much work it is to "do it ourselves", but doing that would make Ubuntu different from the rest (although Debian could adopt it, and thus most of the derivates).

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