82 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
82 lines
3.4 KiB
Plaintext
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Propaganda for version 2.58 of sysvinit & utilities
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==================================================
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NOTE: If you use a standard distribution like Slackware, Debian
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or Redhat there probably is no need to upgrade. Installing sysvinit
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is only for those that upgrade their system by hand or for people
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that create Linux distributions.
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Sysvinit is probably the most widely used init package for Linux.
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Most distributions use it. sysvinit 2.4 is really a good package,
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and it was not the need for bugfixes but the need for more features
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that made me work on sysvinit again.
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Sysvinit is now a debian package. Debian source packages are not
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special in any way -- in fact you can just unpack and compile
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it on any other Linux distribution.
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There was a 2.50 release of sysvinit but that was not very popular-
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some of the included scripts broke with certain shells and other
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minor things like that. Unfortunately I was not able to fix this
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at the time because I was abroad for some time. Therefore the
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description below is a comparison of 2.4 and 2.58 (actually the
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same blurb as from the 2.50 announce but updated).
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Wrt 2.4, some of the code has been made simpler. Everything, from
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halt to reboot to single user mode is now done by shell scripts
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that are executed directly by init (from /etc/inittab), so shutdown
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does not kill processes anymore and then calls reboot - it merely
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does some wall's to the logged in users and then switches to
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runlevel 0 (halt), 1 (single user) or 6 (reboot).
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I have removed support for the old style scripts; the included
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example scripts are the Debian GNU/Linux distribution scripts.
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This does not mean that eg the Slackware scripts stop to work;
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you can probably drop this init into Slackware 3.0 without problems.
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Most people have an entry in inittab to run shutdown when CTRL-ALT-DEL
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is pressed; a feature has been added to shutdown to check if a
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authorized user is logged in on one of the consoles to see if a
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shutdown is allowed. This can be configured with an access file.
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Some other general changes:
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- utility "runlevel" to read the current and previous runlevel from
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/var/run/utmp (it's also shown on the command line if you do a "ps").
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- unreckognized options are silently ignored (such as the infamous
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"ro" - mount root file system read only).
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- if the file /etc/initscript is present it will be used to launch
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all programs that init starts (so that you can set a generic
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umask, ulimit eg for ALL processes - see initscript.sample).
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- A "sulogin" program added that always asks for the root
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passsword before entering single user mode.
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- A "-b" flag to init that starts a shell at boot time before
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_any_ other processing.
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- I moved /etc/fastboot to /fastboot - wonder what that's gonna break :)
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- I even updated the manpages!
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Right, now some boring stuff you already know since it's the same
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as in the 2.4 release:
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The sysvinit package includes
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* a sysv compatible /sbin/init program
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* a telinit program (er, just a link to /sbin/init) to change runlevels
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* a featureful shutdown
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* halt and reboot to assist shutdown
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* a very forgiving last utility
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* the wall & mesg programs (not installed by default)
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* manpages for everything
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The new sysv init can be found on:
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tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/sources/sbin as sysvinit-2.58-1.tar.gz
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sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/system/Daemons as sysvinit-2.58-1.tar.gz
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It will be moved there in a few days, in the mean time it is
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probably in the Incoming directory.
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Mike. (02-Jan-1996)
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