Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Arjan Bouter <abouter AT sourcemage.org>]

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Implementing Init Manager Program (IMP) into Source Mage GNU/Linux (SMGL)


HISTORY:
        For quite some time people have voiced their concerns with SMGL using
        simpleinit-msb as init-system. Often heard concerns are "the current
        init-system is unsupported/dead!" or "this is not what <insert distro>
        uses!"

        To be honest, most of our init system is made up of bash scripts.
        It doesn't really matter if the upstream software is dead, as long as
        we maintain the scripting on top of it.

        Currently libinitd handles the installation of init-scripts, which 
only
        caters for simpleinit-msb.

WHY:
        Simpleinit-msb has proven to be reliable for SMGL, but it's not the
        fastest by any standard. There are both faster and more advanced 
options
        available to replace it entirely.

        But to be able to have a choice in which init-system you want to use,
        we have got to have a layer on top of the init-system itself to be 
able
        to have spells (or sorcery) perform tasks like install, remove, enable
        or disable init-scripts. The spells should not have to care about 
which
        init-system is being used.

WHAT:
        IMP is a program that functions as an abstraction layer between init
        and the admin or spells, replacing libinitd. It handles the details of
        putting init-scripts in the right places, setting options to enable or
        disable them. If one wishes to keep using simpleinit-msb, then nothing
        changes except an extra piece of software being installed. Everyone
        else gets to use the init-system they prefer. It's a win-win 
situation.

WHO:
        Andraž Levstik (ruskie) wrote IMP,
        Jeremy Kajikawa (Belxjander) is working on systemd support,
        Arjan Bouter (abouter) is working on upstart support,
        Volunteers are welcome ;)

TODO:
        * fix IMP: most of the code is written, but there are bugs, some
          missing parts and improvements can be made.
        * remove sorcery functions for init scripts and have spells call imp
          instead.
        * add support for upstart: scripts have to be written for IMP and
          smgl-imp-data-upstart has to be created
        * add support for systemd scripts have to be written for IMP and
          smgl-imp-data-systemd has to be created
        * documentation: it's not hard to use IMP, but a manpage and/or some
          docs are useful.

Comments, suggestions and patches are welcome,
Arjan Bouter

+=======
Source Mage GNU/Linux developer,
http://www.sourcemage.org
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