Gentoo + Upstart

[Michael Biebl]

2006/10/18, Sean E. Russell <upstart at ser1.net>:

> On sysvinit, you symlink init scripts into the rc.? directories as S and K
> scripts.  On Gentoo, you use 'rc-update add|del' to add and remove init
> scripts, and Gentoo handles resolving dependencies to insert the script into
> the init sequence in the appropriate place. In Upstart, you place event
> scripts into /etc/event.d, and if the appropriate events are generated, the
> scripts will be run.  To disable scripts, they are removed from /etc/event.d.
>
> 0) When a service is disabled, where should the event script be moved to?
> Removing it entirely is not a good idea... it can't be easily re-enabled.
>
> 1) When a package manager installs a package, where should it put the event
> script?  On Gentoo, the default behavior when a service is installed is NOT
> to automatically enable it.  If you install CUPS, you must
> additionally "rc-update add" it to get it to start.  To replicate this
> policy, there should be an intermediate place for (disabled) event scripts to
> live, and it woludn't be a terrible thing to have an Upstart script that
> moves event scripts between the /etc/event.d and <disabled> directories --
> something that implements the functionality of "rc-update" and
> Redhat's "service".
>
> Any convenience scripts are secondary, and can be added later; the important
> part, I think, is the policy decision about where disabled Upstart scripts
> should live.
>

What about installing the job description files to /usr/lib/upstart/
(or /lib/upstart or any other suitable directory).
"Activating a service" means creating a symlink to /etc/event.d.
I like this idea, because it makes it easy to spot, which services are
activated or not (compared to installing all files to /etc/event.d and
then disabling the services by editing the files  and setting a
"disabled" flag).
In addition a tool like "rc-update" would be quite easy to implement
because it wouldn't have to parse and write job description files
rather than creating (or removing) a mere symlink.

Cheers,
Michael