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66 0.9.2.0 and 66-tools 0.3.0.0 released

Dear Obarun Community,

New releases of 66 (0.9.2.0) and 66-tools (0.3.0.0) are available in the Obarun testing repositories. 66 becomes more predictable and easier to debug, and 66-tools brings a web interface to drive 66 from a browser, a 66-dbus-launch without any external D-Bus library and a deeply reviewed 66-ns. Below is what you have to do to upgrade, followed by an overview of the changes.

Upgrading

The migration is automatic and, coming from 0.9.1.x, it works without a reboot. The first 66 command after the upgrade takes a snapshot named system@<version>, converts the files of 66 and restarts the helpers whose behaviour changed, so a running machine keeps working.

Synchronize and upgrade. This brings oblibs to 0.4.1.0, needed by both releases:

# pacman -Syu

Then trigger the migration as root first, then as each regular user that has a 66 ecosystem:

# 66 status

$ 66 status

Warning

A shutdown planned before the upgrade, with 66 reboot +<minutes> or 66 poweroff <hh:mm>, is dropped. Plan it again once the upgrade is done.

What you must check

On the 66 side:

  • Remove the LIVE= line from /etc/66/init.conf if you edited that file. It is ignored without a word.
  • Drop -l from any personal script that passes it to 66, 66-hpr or 66-shutdownd, clone= from 66 tree create or 66 tree admin, and -P from 66 remove. They are now refused.
  • A personal service name ending with -log is reserved to the loggers, and a service or tree name starting with a dot is refused. Rename such a frontend. The migration removes a service already parsed with the -log suffix, its frontend stays.
  • A service that must never be killed on its way down needs [Stop] Timeout = 0 in its frontend.
  • A script that relied on -P taking the logger along must now name the logger itself.
  • 66 fdholder start|stop|restart is replaced by 66 internal start|stop|restart fdholderd.
  • Several exit codes moved from 111 to 100 for refusals. A script that tested them must be adjusted.

On the 66-tools side:

  • The D-Bus session socket moves from /run/user/UID/dbus to /run/user/UID/bus. Update any configuration or script of yours that names the old path.
  • Run 66-web passwd once before the first 66-web serve. Without a credential, the interface serves nothing.
  • If your services use the rule files of 66-ns, check them: kernel-logs.rule and kernel-tunables.rule now really apply, system-strict.rule now makes /boot and /tmp read-only as well. When you combine several rule files, put system-strict.rule last.

66 0.9.2.0

Debugging

The verbosity you set for the boot, VERBOSITY in /etc/66/init.conf or on the kernel command line, now reaches every 66 tool: the scandir, the supervisors, the internal helpers and the services themselves. When you debug a boot at a high verbosity, you get their trace as well. A VERBOSITY exported in your shell does the same for the 66 commands you type.

Stopping a service

A service that does not stop is now killed after 10 seconds, unless its frontend sets its own [Stop] Timeout. [Stop] Timeout = 0 keeps waiting without end. A shutdown or a 66 stop can no longer hang forever on one stuck service.

Oneshots

A oneshot that runs past its timeout is stopped together with every process it started, instead of leaving them behind. 66 status tells you whether its script failed, was killed by a signal or could not be run at all.

A reactor can now act when a oneshot finishes, the same way it already could for a long-running service:

[Event]
EventType = service
From = ( oneshot_service )
On = ( done )

A broken service no longer stops everything

A tree, the boot and the shutdown now start or stop every service that is fine, and only leave aside a broken service, one whose files cannot be read or that sits in a dependency loop, together with the services that depend on it. The broken service is named with the command that repairs it. Before, the tree stopped at the first refusal, and one bad service could leave a whole boot half started.

The new 66 reconfigure -c is that repair: it removes what the service left on disk, parses its frontend again and puts it back in the state it was in.

Commands you can trust

A command that refuses one of the services you named changes nothing at all, instead of acting on some of them. -P acts on the services you named and nothing else, not even their logger. Two 66 commands run at the same time no longer write over each other, they take turns. A service can therefore run 66 itself, for instance Execute = ( 66 start serviceA ).

Names and providers

A name now means one thing: either the service that bears it, or the service that provides it with Provide, never both. A provider can take over the name of a disabled service:

# 66 disable -P dbus
# 66 enable dbus-launch

66 remove network, where network is only provided by connmand, now tells you to run 66 remove connmand instead of removing connmand behind your back.

Frontend files

66 now reads and runs the Execute line of your frontends itself. execl-cmdline is no longer needed around a command, a syntax error stops the start with a message naming the service, and a variable left empty in [Environment] no longer breaks the start.

Other new things

  • 66 internal start|stop|restart|status acts on the three helpers of a scandir: fdholderd, oneshotd and eventd. For instance 66 internal restart eventd when the reactors no longer answer.
  • 66 status accepts several services and shows them in the order 66 starts them.
  • 66 status and 66 runstate tell how a oneshot ended: exited, signaled or exec-failed.

Many bugs are fixed as well, among them 66 snapshot remove "" which destroyed every snapshot, and the parser taking a capitalised word inside a script for a key. The complete list is in the changelog.

66-tools 0.3.0.0

66-web

A single program serves a web page and a JSON API to list services and trees, read their state, follow their changes live and act on them. It handles the services of the user that runs it and nothing else. See 66-web.

Set a credential first, the interface serves nothing without it. Then start the server:

$ 66-web passwd
$ 66-web serve

66-dbus-launch

The launcher no longer needs any external D-Bus library. It reads system.conf or session.conf by itself, follows their includes and applies the resulting policy. A rule installed in system.d used to require a restart of the whole bus, which cut every client, a SIGHUP to the launcher is now enough.

66-userd

66-userd, which starts the services of a user at login, is now reliable on fresh accounts and right after boot. It works on an account that never used 66, leaves the system accounts alone, waits for the supervision to listen before starting the trees, and can be restarted.

66-ns

The sandbox tool went through a deep review. Several of its mounts landed in the wrong place or silently did nothing, they now do what the documentation says. It can run a program on another root than the one of the host, such as a directory where pacman -r installed a system, and its rule files now are compatible with the sandboxing options of systemd, with a conversion table in its documentation.

Deprecated tools

execl-cmdline, 66-getenv, 66-gnwenv and 66-writenv are deprecated. They write a warning at each run and will be removed in the next release. The last three complemented 66 when it ran on top of s6 and s6-rc, and 66-execute now does the job of execl-cmdline.

Documentation

Feedback is welcome. Report anything that went wrong on the forum or on git.obarun.org.

Thank you for your continued support of Obarun.

Eric Vidal: [email protected]