update-rc.d "multiuser" is deprecated

[Martin Pitt]

Hello fellow Ubuntu developers,

a while ago we introduced a new mode "multiuser" to update-rc.d, which
would behave like "defaults" except for not creating rc.d stop
symlinks for runlevels 0 (halt) and 6 (shutdown). This avoids
needlessly running a lot of shell code in init scripts only to kill a
daemon (which happens as last step of the shutdown process anyway).

The idea hasn't changed, of course, but the implementation with
"multiuser" has been deprecated in Ubuntu now. It was never accepted
in Debian, instead they aim for using the LSB init script headers.

We do not want to carry this delta forever, so I would like to ask all
of you to drop the usage of "multiuser" and call update-rc.d with
manual arguments from now on. Some examples:

  Old: multiuser 
  New: start 20 2 3 4 5 . stop 20 1 .
  
  Old: multiuser 10
  New: start 10 2 3 4 5 . stop 10 1 .  # [2]
  
  Old: multiuser 20 80
  New: start 20 2 3 4 5 . stop 80 1 .


While you are at it, please do the corresponding change in the LSB
init script header as well: "Default-Stop: 0 1 6" -> "Default-Stop: 1".

The advantage of this is that these changes can be sent to Debian for
adoption. I already did it for a number of packages (cron, cupsys,
some others), which allowed us to get back in sync with Debian, since
in many cases this is our only delta to them at the moment (examples:
rsync, dnsmasq). See [3] for a list of packages which still use
multiuser.

The current sysvinit in Intrepid still works with "multiuser", but it
is not documented any more. I'd like to get rid of it at some point,
when all packages stopped using 'multiuser'. It isn't terribly urgent,
and it is not required to get it done within Intrepid, but I'd like
you to keep this in mind when you do your next merge.

Thank you!

Martin

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Teardown
[2] Please note that in this case you should actually use "stop 90 1",
    which is much more correct (100 minus start priority); see man
    update-rc.d for details.
[3] acct
    acpid
    apmd
    backuppc
    ddclient
    destar
    dictd
    dnsmasq
    dovecot
    fetchmail
    hotkey-setup
    irda-utils
    kde-guidance
    keepalived
    lm-sensors
    net-snmp
    nis
    ntp
    pbbuttonsd
    powernowd
    pptpd
    pulseaudio
    smartmontools
    sysklogd
    tftp-hpa
    vsftpd
-- 
Martin Pitt                        | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com)  | Debian Developer  (www.debian.org)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/attachments/20080605/99a896c7/attachment.pgp