Re: Minimal init [was: A few observations about systemd]

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Steve Langasek writes ("Re: Minimal init [was: A few observations about systemd]"):
> FWIW, I've gotten feedback from Samba upstream that the upstart job for smbd
> in Ubuntu, which runs the daemon foregrounded, is concerning to them because
> foreground mode hasn't been tested upstream in about a decade.  No bug
> reports yet about actual breakage, but if not for the fact that smbd manages
> to bewilder upstart's daemon tracking code when allowed to daemonize (fix
> coming soon), I would switch the job to invoke smbd in the usual fashion.

If the code is in upstream already then clearly we don't have a
problem getting it into upstream.  All that's needed is for it to be
fixed, and upstream will take those fixes.

> There's also the matter that if your daemon is being run in the foreground,
> other services depend on it, and you're not using socket activation, there's
> ambiguity as to when the service is actually "started".  A racy startup is a
> bad thing.

I agree.  But using a daemon's call to fork() as a proxy for startup
notification is IMO absurd.

Also I have no objection to socket activation (which is after all
what inetd does...).

Ian.