9 "Dinit" is a service supervisor with dependency support which can also
10 act as the system "init" program.
12 Specifically it can launch multiple services (generally, "daemon" processes,
13 but see notes below) in parallel, with dependency management (i.e. if one
14 service's operation depends on another, the latter service will be started
17 For "process" services Dinit can monitor the process corresponding to the
18 service, and re-start it if it dies. It does this in an intelligent way,
19 first "rolling back" all dependent services, and restarting them when their
20 dependencies are satisfied.
22 Dinit includes a tool ("dinitctl") to issue commands to the main Dinit
23 process, and a "shutdown" program (with scripts "halt" and "reboot") to
24 manage shutting down and restarting the system.
26 Dinit is designed to work on POSIXy operating systems such as Linux and
27 OpenBSD. It is written in C++ and uses the "Dasynq" event handling library,
28 which was written especially to support Dinit.
30 Development goals include clean design, robustness, portability, and
31 avoiding feature bloat (whilst still handling a variety of use cases).
33 See doc/COMPARISON for a comparison of Dinit with similar software packages.
35 Dinit is licensed under the Apache License, version 2.0. A copy of this
36 license can be found in the LICENSE file.
38 Dinit was written by Davin McCall <davmac@davmac.org>.
40 See BUILD for information on how to build Dinit.
43 Introduction to services
44 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
46 A "service" is nominally a persistent process or system state. The two main
47 types of service are a _process_ service (represented by a an actual process)
48 and a _scripted_ service (which is started and stopped by running a process -
49 often a shell script - to completion). There are also _bgprocess_ services
50 and _internal_services.
52 Many programs that you might want to run under dinit's supervision can run
53 either "in the foreground" or as a daemon ("in the background"), and the
54 choice is dictated by a command line switch (for instance the -D and -F
55 switches to Samba's "smbd"). Although it might seem counterintuitive,
56 the "foreground" mode should be used for programs registered as process
57 services in dinit; this allows dinit to monitor the process.
59 Process services are attractive due to the ease of monitoring (and
60 restarting) the service, however, they have one inherent problem, which is
61 that dinit cannot tell when the service is truly started. Once the process
62 has been launched, dinit assumes that the service has started, but in fact
63 there will be a short delay before the process sets itself up, starts
64 listening on sockets, etc; during this time any other process (including
65 one from a service listed as dependent) which tries to contact it will not
66 be able to do so. In practice, this is not usually a problem (and external
67 solutions, like D-Bus, do exist).
69 A _scripted_ service has separate commands for startup and (optional)
70 shutdown. Scripted services can be used for tasks such as mounting file
71 systems that don't need a persisten process, and in some cases can be used
72 for daemon processes (although Dinit will not be able to supervise a
73 process that is registered as a scripted service).
75 A _bgprocess_ service is a mix between a process service and a scripted
76 service. A command is used to start the service, and once started, the
77 process ID is expected to be available in a file which Dinit can then
78 read. Many existing daemons can operate in this way. Dinit can only supervise
79 the process if it runs as the system "init" (PID 1) - otherwise Dinit will
80 not know when the process has terminated.
82 (Note, use of bgprocess services type requires care. The file from which the
83 PID is read is trusted; Dinit may send signals to the specified PID. It
84 should not be possible for unauthorised users to modify the file contents!)
86 An _internal_ service is just a placeholder service that can be used to
87 describe a set of dependencies. An internal service has no corresponding
91 Service Hiearchy and states
92 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
94 Services can depend on other services for operation, and so form a
95 dependency hierarchy. Starting a service which depends on another
96 causes that other service to start (and the first service waits until
97 the latter has started before its process is launched and it is itself
100 Services are considered _active_ when they are not stopped. Services
101 can also be explicitly marked as active (this normally happens when you
102 explicitly start a service). Finally, a service with an active dependent
103 is also considered active.
105 If a service stops and becomes inactive (i.e. it is not explicitly marked
106 active and has no active dependents) then any services it depends on will
107 also be marked inactive and stopped unless they have other active
108 dependents, or were explicitly started and marked active.
110 What this means is that, in general, starting an (inactive, stopped)
111 service and then stopping it will return the system to its prior state -
112 no dependencies which were started automatically will be left running.
115 Service Description files
116 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
118 Dinit discovers services by reading _service description files_. These files
119 reside in a directory (/etc/dinit.d is the default "system" location) and
120 their name matches the name of the service. Service descriptions are loaded
121 lazily, as needed by Dinit.
123 A service description file consists of a number of parameter settings.
124 Settings in the SDF are denoted as a parameter name followed by either an
125 equal sign or colon and then the parameter value (all on the same line).
126 Comments begin with a hash mark (#) and extend to the end of the line (they
127 must be separated from setting values by at least one whitespace character).
129 Parameter values are interpreted literally, except that:
130 - whitespace is collapsed to a single space
131 - double quotes can be used around all or part(s) of a parameter to prevent
132 whitespace collapse and interpretation of special characters
133 - backslash can be used to 'escape' the next character, preventing any
134 special meaning from being associated with it. It can be used to include
135 non-collapsing whitespace, double-quote marks, and backslashes in the
140 type = process | bgprocess | scripted | internal
144 depends-on = (service name)
145 waits-for = (service name)
147 command = (external script or executable, and arguments)
148 For a 'process' service, this is the process to run.
149 For a 'scripted' service, this command is run to start the service.
151 stop-command = (external script or executable, and arguments)
152 For a 'scripted' service, this command is run to stop the service.
154 restart = yes | true | no | false
155 Specifies whether the service should automatically restart if it becomes
156 stopped (for any reason, including being explicitly requested to stop).
157 Only active services will restart automatically.
159 smooth-recovery = yes | true | no | false
160 For process services only. Specifies that, should the process die, it
161 can be restarted without bringing the service itself down. This means that
162 any dependent services do not need to be stopped/restarted. Such recovery
163 happens regardless of the "restart" setting (if smooth-recovery is enabled,
164 the service does not reach the stopped state when the process terminates
167 pid-file = (path to file)
168 For "bgprocess" type services only; specifies the path of the file where
169 daemon will write its process ID before detaching.
171 depends-on = (service name)
172 This service depends on the named service. Starting this service will
173 start the named service; the command to start this service will not be
174 executed until the named service has started. If the named service is
175 stopped then this service will also be stopped.
177 waits-for = (service name)
178 When this service is started, wait for the named service to finish
179 starting (or to fail starting) before commencing the start procedure
180 for this service. Starting this service will automatically start
183 socket-listen = (socket path)
184 Pre-open a socket for the service and pass it to the service using the
185 Systemd activation protocol. This by itself does not give so called
186 "socket activation", but does allow that any process trying to connect
187 to the specified socket will be able to do so, even before the service
188 is properly prepared to accept connections.
190 socket-permissions = (octal permissions mask)
191 Gives the permissions for the socket specified using socket-listen.
192 Normally this will be 600 (user access only), 660 (user and group
193 access), or 666 (all users).
195 socket-uid = (numeric user id or username)
196 Specifies the user that should own the activation socket. If socket-uid
197 is specified without also specifying socket-gid, then the socket group
198 is the primary group of the specified user (as found in the system user
199 database, normally /etc/passwd). If the socket owner is not specified,
200 the socket will be owned by the user id of the Dinit process.
202 socket-gid = (numeric group id or group name)
203 Specifies the group of the activation socket. See discussion of
206 termsignal = HUP | INT | QUIT | USR1 | USR2
207 Specifies an additional signal to send to the process when requesting it
208 to terminate (applies to 'process' services only). SIGTERM is always
209 sent along with the specified signal, unless the 'nosigterm' setting is
212 options = ( runs-on-console | nosigterm | starts-rwfs | starts-log ) ...
213 Specifies various options for this service:
215 no-sigterm : specifies that the TERM signal should not be send to the
216 process to terminate it. (Another signal can be specified using
217 the "termsignal" setting; if no other signal is specified, NO
218 signal will be sent).
220 runs-on-console : specifies that this service uses the console; its input
221 and output should be directed to the console. A service running
222 on the console prevents other services from running on the
223 console (they will queue for the console). For scripted services
224 "runs-on-console" applies only during execution of the start
227 The "interrupt" key (normally control-C) will be active for
228 process / scripted services that run on the console. This is
229 useful to allow filesystem checks to be interrupted/skipped.
231 starts-rwfs : this service mounts the root filesystem read/write (or at
232 least mounts the normal writable filesystems for the system).
233 This prompts Dinit to create its control socket, if it has not
234 already managed to do so.
236 starts-log : this service starts the system log daemon. Dinit will begin
237 logging via the /dev/log socket.
239 pass-cs-fd : pass an open Dinit control socket to the process when launching
240 it (the DINIT_CS_FD environment variable will be set to the file
241 descriptor of the socket). This allows the service to issue
242 commands to Dinit even if the regular control socket is not
245 Using this option has security implications! The service which
246 receives the control socket must close it before launching any
247 untrusted processes. You should not use this option unless the
248 service is designed to receive a Dinit control socket.
254 You can use the "dinitctl" to start and stop services. Typical invocations
257 dinitctl start <service-name>
258 dinitctl stop <service-name>
259 dinitctl release <service-name>
261 Note that a "start" markes the service active, as well as starting it if it is
262 not already started; the opposite of this is actually "release", which clears
263 the active mark and stops it if it has no active dependent services. The "stop"
264 command by default acts as a "release" which also forces the service to stop
265 (although it may then immediately restart, depending on how it and its
266 dependents are configured).
268 Use the "-s" switch to talk the "system" instance of dinit, rather than a
269 personal instance, e.g:
271 dinitctl -s start mysql # start system mysql service
273 For complete details on the command line, use:
277 You can "pin" a service in either the stopped or started state, which prevents
278 it from changing state either due to a dependency/dependent or a direct
281 dinitctl -s start --pin mysql # start mysql service, pin it as "started"
282 dinitctl -s stop mysql # issues stop, but doesn't take effect due to pin
283 dinitctl -s unpin mysql # release pin; service will now stop
285 You can pin a service in the stopped state in order to make sure it doesn't
286 get started accidentally (either via a dependency or directly). You can also
287 use it to temporarily keep stopped a service that would otherwise restart
288 immediately when you stopped it (because it, or a dependent, is configured
289 to restart automatically).
291 Finally, you can list the state of all loaded services:
295 This may result in something like the following:
308 The above represents a number of started services and one stopped service
309 (mysql). Services transitioning state (starting or stopping) are displayed
310 with an arrow indicating the transition direction:
312 [ <<{-}] mysql # starting
313 [{+}>> ] mysql # stopping
315 Remember that a "starting" service may be waiting for its dependencies to
316 start, and a "stopping" service may be waiting for its dependencies to stop.