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a74aeac6 PR |
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2 | ||
3 | Propaganda for version 2.58 of sysvinit & utilities | |
4 | ================================================== | |
5 | ||
6 | NOTE: If you use a standard distribution like Slackware, Debian | |
7 | or Redhat there probably is no need to upgrade. Installing sysvinit | |
8 | is only for those that upgrade their system by hand or for people | |
9 | that create Linux distributions. | |
10 | ||
11 | Sysvinit is probably the most widely used init package for Linux. | |
12 | Most distributions use it. sysvinit 2.4 is really a good package, | |
13 | and it was not the need for bugfixes but the need for more features | |
14 | that made me work on sysvinit again. | |
15 | ||
16 | Sysvinit is now a debian package. Debian source packages are not | |
17 | special in any way -- in fact you can just unpack and compile | |
18 | it on any other Linux distribution. | |
19 | ||
20 | There was a 2.50 release of sysvinit but that was not very popular- | |
21 | some of the included scripts broke with certain shells and other | |
22 | minor things like that. Unfortunately I was not able to fix this | |
23 | at the time because I was abroad for some time. Therefore the | |
24 | description below is a comparison of 2.4 and 2.58 (actually the | |
25 | same blurb as from the 2.50 announce but updated). | |
26 | ||
27 | Wrt 2.4, some of the code has been made simpler. Everything, from | |
28 | halt to reboot to single user mode is now done by shell scripts | |
29 | that are executed directly by init (from /etc/inittab), so shutdown | |
30 | does not kill processes anymore and then calls reboot - it merely | |
31 | does some wall's to the logged in users and then switches to | |
32 | runlevel 0 (halt), 1 (single user) or 6 (reboot). | |
33 | ||
34 | I have removed support for the old style scripts; the included | |
35 | example scripts are the Debian GNU/Linux distribution scripts. | |
36 | This does not mean that eg the Slackware scripts stop to work; | |
37 | you can probably drop this init into Slackware 3.0 without problems. | |
38 | ||
39 | Most people have an entry in inittab to run shutdown when CTRL-ALT-DEL | |
40 | is pressed; a feature has been added to shutdown to check if a | |
41 | authorized user is logged in on one of the consoles to see if a | |
42 | shutdown is allowed. This can be configured with an access file. | |
43 | ||
44 | Some other general changes: | |
45 | - utility "runlevel" to read the current and previous runlevel from | |
46 | /var/run/utmp (it's also shown on the command line if you do a "ps"). | |
47 | - unreckognized options are silently ignored (such as the infamous | |
48 | "ro" - mount root file system read only). | |
49 | - if the file /etc/initscript is present it will be used to launch | |
50 | all programs that init starts (so that you can set a generic | |
51 | umask, ulimit eg for ALL processes - see initscript.sample). | |
52 | - A "sulogin" program added that always asks for the root | |
53 | passsword before entering single user mode. | |
54 | - A "-b" flag to init that starts a shell at boot time before | |
55 | _any_ other processing. | |
56 | - I moved /etc/fastboot to /fastboot - wonder what that's gonna break :) | |
57 | - I even updated the manpages! | |
58 | ||
59 | Right, now some boring stuff you already know since it's the same | |
60 | as in the 2.4 release: | |
61 | ||
62 | The sysvinit package includes | |
63 | ||
64 | * a sysv compatible /sbin/init program | |
65 | * a telinit program (er, just a link to /sbin/init) to change runlevels | |
66 | * a featureful shutdown | |
67 | * halt and reboot to assist shutdown | |
68 | * a very forgiving last utility | |
69 | * the wall & mesg programs (not installed by default) | |
70 | * manpages for everything | |
71 | ||
72 | The new sysv init can be found on: | |
73 | ||
74 | tsx-11.mit.edu:/pub/linux/sources/sbin as sysvinit-2.58-1.tar.gz | |
75 | sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/system/Daemons as sysvinit-2.58-1.tar.gz | |
76 | ||
77 | It will be moved there in a few days, in the mean time it is | |
78 | probably in the Incoming directory. | |
79 | ||
80 | Mike. (02-Jan-1996) | |
81 |