Name
initctl — utility to control simpleinit(8)
OVERVIEW
The initctl
programme is designed to help improve the robustness,
scalability and readability of system boot scripts. It is now
possible to write a modularised set of boot scripts without
the complex and fragile numbered symlink scheme used in
SysV-style boot scripts. Each script can simply declare,
using need(8), what must run before
them.
DESCRIPTION for need
The need
programme is a utility that tells simpleinit(8) to start a
service (usually a
script in /sbin/init.d) and
will wait for the service to become available. If the service
is already available, it will not be started again.
The −r
option is used to tell simpleinit(8) to "roll
back" (stop) services up to (but not including) service. If service is not specified, all
services are stopped. The −r option thus allows the
system to be partially or wholly shut down in an orderly
fashion. The shutdown(8) programme still
needs to be run.
DESCRIPTION for display-services
When invoked as display-services it will
write the list of currently available services and the list
of failed services to the standard output.
DESCRIPTION for provide
When invoked as provide it tells simpleinit(8) that the
parent (calling) process will be providing a service with
name service. If the
calling process exits successfully (status 0) the service is
deemed to be available. Only one instance of service may be started, so
alternate providers will block and may fail.
Using provide it
is possible to have multiple potential providers for the same
(generic) service (e.g. sendmail and qmail both provide a
mta service), where
only one actually provides the service. This may be used by
service startup scripts which check for configuration
files.
EXIT CODE
The exit code from need is 0 if the service was
successfully started, 1 if the service failed badly, and 2 if
the service is unavailable (i.e. disabled in configuration
files). These exit codes reflect the exit codes from the
service startup scripts.
The exit code from need
-r is 0 if the service was successfully stopped,
1 if the service could not be stopped, and 2 if the service
was not available to start with. The service shutdown scripts
may only return 0 (for success) or 1 (for failure).
The exit code from provide is 0 if the service
may be provided, 1 if it may not, and 2 if the parent process
is not a child of init. It may block waiting for another
provider which is initialising the service.
SIGNALS
initctl(8) uses
SIGUSR1, SIGUSR2 and SIGPOLL for communication with simpleinit(8). Don't send
these signals to it.
SEE ALSO
simpleinit(8), init(8)
A more complete discussion of the new boot script system,
based on need(8), is available from:
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/boot-scripts/
AUTHOR
Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
AVAILABILITY
The Util-Linux package is available from:
ftp://ftp.??.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/
Copyright (C) 2000-2001 Richard Gooch
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Richard Gooch may be reached by email at rgooch@atnf.csiro.au
The postal address is:
Richard Gooch, c/o ATNF, P. O. Box 76, Epping, N.S.W., 2121, Australia.
initctl.8 Richard Gooch
21-FEB-2001
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