Re: [DNG] Conversion script: was Formail for managing digests

2019-12-03 Thread Steve Litt
On Mon, 2 Dec 2019 10:13:01 +0100
Edward Bartolo via Dng  wrote:

> Dear All,
> 
> Inits need to understand unit files, give them that functionality.
> That is far more efficient compared to what you are doing.
> 
> Pseudo Code:
> 1) check for the presence of a unit file
> 2) if it exists
> a) branch to function to read unit file and run daemon
> b) if NOT execute shell script to run daemon
> 
> Programming allows to create a configuration text file which tells an
> init to be aware of the existence of unit files. This can be used to
> minimize the incidence of bugs for cases where no unit files are used.
> The extra functionality can be debugged in separate functions.

IMHO the preceding is complexity you don't need, at least if I read you
correctly and you're suggesting non-systemd inits process Unit Files at
boot time. The startup files, be they init scripts, run scripts or
Epoch .conf files, can be done offline using a conversion plus testing
and touchup, and then used at boot time.

SteveT

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Re: [DNG] Conversion script: was Formail for managing digests

2019-12-03 Thread Steve Litt
On Tue, 3 Dec 2019 09:02:14 +0100
Denis Roio  wrote:

> On Sat, 30 Nov 2019, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 07:21:54PM +0100, Massimo Coppola wrote:
> >   
> > > 
> > > If (assuming that) we are going to lose the source of init scripts
> > > upstream, then it's the only way forward.  (For those who consider
> > > recognizing the unit files as a valid source a defeat: I may agree
> > > with you, but sometimes a strategic retreat can lead to victory).
> > >  
> > 
> > If we are worried about losing init scripts upstream, I suggest we
> > maintain a version-controlled collection if initscripts somewhere so
> > that if one disappears from a package we can restore it.  
> 
> This is what I'm really unsure of, so far. Every time I tried to
> debate this with someone knowing Debian better than I do, we ended in
> disagreement.
> 
> My opinion however is this: maintaining a *unique package* of version
> controlled init scripts in Devuan is much, much easier than
> maintaining a sysvinit script in each different package, forking it.

You'll get no arguments from me. From the very beginning, I didn't
think either "upstreams" or daemon package maintainers should be
responsible for init scripts, run scripts, or Epoch conf files. It was
this responsibility and the burden thereof that caused the DSs to
support systemd and *only* systemd: They were tired of supporting
sysvinit scripts, which I think we all admit are atrocities.

But to a person familiar with sysvinit, they're probably all similar.
Run the dependencies, then run the daemon. Kill means kill the daemon,
and then if the dependencies are dependencies only of the daemon, kill
them. Reload means sending the proper signal, and restart means stop
then start. There are also a few logging issues. I'm not sure why this
adds up to more than 200 lines in so many cases, and maybe if we had
professional sysvinit init script maintainers, it wouldn't.

 
SteveT

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Re: [DNG] Conversion script for maintainers

2019-12-03 Thread Steve Litt
On Tue, 3 Dec 2019 23:04:56 +
s@po  wrote:


> 
> I believe you are talking about Situation 1)( Give SysVInit the
> Knowledge about SystemD unitFiles.. )? 

I thought this was settled law. Debian has sysvinit scripts, dropped
ones can be gotten from Wheezy, and in other cases there exists a
conversion script that seems mighty thorough. I thought therefore that
nobody in Devuan would need to create sysvinit scripts.

Now if you're talking about s6, runit, Epoch and OpenRC, yes, script
maintainers should be given knowledge of Unit Files.
 
SteveT

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Re: [DNG] Conversion script for maintainers

2019-12-03 Thread s
Hello all,

>Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2019 10:13:01 +0100
>From: Edward Bartolo via Dng 
>Dear All,
>
>Inits need to understand unit files, give them that functionality.
>That is far more efficient compared to what you are doing.
>
>Pseudo Code:
>1) check for the presence of a unit file
>2) if it exists
>a) branch to function to read unit file and run daemon
>b) if NOT execute shell script to run daemon
>
>Programming allows to create a configuration text file which tells an
>init to be aware of the existence of unit files. This can be used to
>minimize the incidence of bugs for cases where no unit files are used.
>The extra functionality can be debugged in separate functions.

I believe you are talking about Situation 1)( Give SysVInit the Knowledge about 
SystemD unitFiles.. )?
Indeed it seems more eficient, at Same time, it could be more dificult, than 
what we think of..

I think it will have to "be the future..", at uncertain time.. Or Debian 
Understands the mistake they are doing..
But there are there good reasoning responses to this thread..to name a few, 
Massimo Coppola, Denis Roio,Hendrik Boom..

There are also( as a short time response.. ) , a option to maintain a colection 
of Scripts in the repos, by Arnt Karlsen, and Dimitris..

Taking Massimo Coppola, Dimitris Observations, and others by new order of 
priority,
1) Maintain a copy of all init Files in theDevuan repos, just in Case.. asked 
by Arnt Karlsen, and Dimitris..
2) Develop a Translation of UnitFiles from SystemD to SysvInit( This proces is 
already Ongoing by viverna ? ), and generally accepted by all, including me..
   Test it, optimize it, and understand deep, the pros and cons, of porting, 
and translating of unit files..
   When process working like we like, step into 3).. Generally supported by 
Massimo Coppola, Denis Roio, Hendrik Boom, and myself, maybe more even..?
3) Depending of the knowledge acquired in 2),
   Implement that into SysVinit, the translation, or Interpretation, of the 
UnitFiles..
   Turn SysVInit capable to launch SystemD daemons, control them..
   Associate each "Runlevel type, etc" of SystemD, and translate them to 
{0..6..1} of SysVInit( So that Devuan could be resilient to InitChanges.. ).
   -> Add: At Same time, when this infraestructure will be created into 
SysVInit,
   **Make it Generic**, and capable to accept more Init Systems,let's 
say Abstract, or Generic..
   Intermediate Language( IR ) ?
   Like LSB Scripts Headers( proposed by William (Bill) Moss ), or a 
refinement of it.. ?

   In This process, at least, I would need to go into references made by Denis 
Roio, quoting bellow,
   a) a DSL parser for the conversion of unitfiles to shell scripts
  say "systemd2sysv".
   b) an easy way to test the shell scripts generated, which is also
  crucial to the task: the quality of the testing environment.
   c) optionally, a way to repackage and test semi-automatically an
  existing deb package undergoing this conversion.
  I have experience writing DSL parsers and recommend using either:
   d) stb_c_lexer by Sean Barrett, part of the STB C lib collection
   e) libhammer by Meredith Patterson, part of langsec.org
  more complex, but way more secure, not sure if this level of
  security is needed however 

I don't know if this is the correct order or priority..
Some of them could even be developed at the same time( in parallel ),
At least at some extent, then 3) needs to wait feedback from 2) ( observed by 
Massimo Coppola ).

-- 
Best Regards,
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Re: [DNG] Conversion script: was Formail for managing digests

2019-12-03 Thread Dimitris via Dng
On 12/3/19 10:02 AM, Denis Roio wrote:
> My opinion however is this: maintaining a *unique package* of version
> controlled init scripts in Devuan is much, much easier than
> maintaining a sysvinit script in each different package, forking it.
> 
> I'm not sure about pressing counter-arguments against this.

maybe i'm wrong, but what if this unique package turns into a single
point of failure for all running daemons (?)

haven't given it much thought, just sayin'.

d.



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Re: [DNG] Conversion script for maintainers

2019-12-03 Thread Hendrik Boom
On Tue, Dec 03, 2019 at 08:58:10AM +0100, Denis Roio wrote:

> I wholeheartedly agree with all your reasoning, quoted below. I don't
> think that converting automatically at init or at package install is a
> good idea: we need to keep this process under scrutiny by maintainers,
> hoping more people will help Devuan, at least on converting scripts
> for important packages, and make life easier for them.

I agree.
It needs to be under scrutiny by maintainers.
And a maintianer might well prefer to use the upstream init anyway.

Don't Debian source packages have aa pristine copy of upstream
and a set of patches?  If that's so, the upstream init scripts
should be available, and we might even be able to have a script
that extracts the upstream init or removes the patch that removes
it.

-- hendrik
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[DNG] [OT] reboot did not work on Systemd based system

2019-12-03 Thread dev via Dng
Had to reboot a Debian based system this weekend to apply kernel patches
but it would not reboot. All commands (poweroff -p, reboot, init 6)
would return with this error message or similar:

   Failed to start reboot.target: Transaction is destructive.
   See system logs and 'systemctl status reboot.target' for details.

Systemctl produced no useful details whatsoever and only reiterated the
command line error in more verbosity. The only recourse was to power
cycle the system after a umount of the major filesystems.

Thank you Devuan for providing a stable and re-bootable system. The bar
continues to be lowered.
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Re: [DNG] How to change the action of the computer's power button?

2019-12-03 Thread Arnt Karlsen
On Mon, 2 Dec 2019 16:32:59 +0100, Stephane wrote in message 
:

> Le 02/12/2019 à 16:03, Mark Hindley a écrit :
> > Did you mean no you don't have elogind installed?  
> 
> It's in status "p" in Dpkg
> >
> > If so, what are you using? pm-utils?  
> 
> Apparently yes
> For example, "pm-suspend" works

..my favorite is "pm-suspend-hybrid", works "right out of the box" 
both with vdev and eudev IME without any configuration on my part. 

-- 
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
  Scenarios always come in sets of three: 
  best case, worst case, and just in case.
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Re: [DNG] How to change the action of the computer's power button?

2019-12-03 Thread Olaf Meeuwissen via Dng

Stephane Ascoet writes:

> Le 02/12/2019 à 15:23, Mark Hindley a écrit :
>> Are you using elogind? If so you can change the defaults in
>> /etc/elogind/logind.conf.
>
> Thanks for the answer but no, and it happens even in TTYs, so I assume
> it's the set at a low-level in system

Hmm, also happens at TTYs you say ... I was thinking the pf, pn and po
settings in /etc/inittab might be involved but I can't seem to find the
/etc/init.d/powerfail script these want to invoke ...
Neither does apt-file search, on ascii at least.

Really low-level, something in your BIOS settings perhaps.

Hope this helps,
--
Olaf Meeuwissen, LPIC-2FSF Associate Member since 2004-01-27
 GnuPG key: F84A2DD9/B3C0 2F47 EA19 64F4 9F13  F43E B8A4 A88A F84A 2DD9
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Re: [DNG] Conversion script for maintainers

2019-12-03 Thread Arnt Karlsen
On Tue, 3 Dec 2019 08:58:10 +0100, Denis wrote in message 
<20191203075810.twxmme6ayyccbftf@reflex>:

> 
> dear Massimo,
> 
> you are very welcome :^) I'm happy to see here a fellow VUA :^D
> 
> down to business

..thanks for talking good sense here, Denis and Massimo. :o)

> 
> > If (assuming that) we are going to lose the source of init scripts
> > upstream, then it's the only way forward.  (For those who consider
> > recognizing the unit files as a valid source a defeat: I may agree
> > with you, but sometimes a strategic retreat can lead to victory).
> 
> I agree, but more than a defeat, this is a repairing strategy against
> an hostile move. Those involved in Debian and SPI should acknowledge
> they are being hostile to the UNIX community at large.
> 
> About having "an Interpreter, for the UnitFiles, that then internally
> do things as SysVInit does": I have privately experimented with this
> for a while now and there are corner-cases, but it is feasible, if
> such cases can be taken care of.
> 
> You adress very well this issue with your reasoning:
> 
> > My impression is that it is viable building a batch init script
> > generator, where package maintainers are able to check and validate
> > the newly generated init scripts *in the maintainer test system*, as
> > well as take care of any peculiar bug of the translation, or quirky
> > behaviour of the unit files.
> 
> This would mean having two things at least:
> 
> 1. a DSL parser for the conversion of unitfiles to shell scripts
>say "systemd2sysv".
> 
> 2. an easy way to test the shell scripts generated, which is also
>crucial to the task: the quality of the testing environment.
> 
> 3. optionally, a way to repackage and test semi-automatically an
>existing deb package undergoing this conversion.
> 
> I have experience writing DSL parsers and recommend using either:
> 
> 1. stb_c_lexer by Sean Barrett, part of the STB C lib collection
> 
> 2. libhammer by Meredith Patterson, part of langsec.org
>more complex, but way more secure, not sure if this level of
>security is needed however
> 
> Assuming of course whoever writes this likes to make it in C, which
> I'd recommend.
> 
> I wholeheartedly agree with all your reasoning, quoted below. I don't
> think that converting automatically at init or at package install is a
> good idea: we need to keep this process under scrutiny by maintainers,
> hoping more people will help Devuan, at least on converting scripts
> for important packages, and make life easier for them.
> 
> > As it's systemd we are talking about, I wouldn't ever place a bet on
> > stable and documented behaviour on its part. Otherwise we wouldn't
> > be here on devuan ML, after all. When new peculiar behaviour is
> > discovered, we can adapt the initscript generator. This would mean a
> > huge effort on repacking debian packages, or having blanket-like
> > packages with init"scripts" for SysV/openrc/any_init that provide
> > the init support to all/groups of debian packages, possibly synced
> > with major revisions of devuan.

..my observation from the few .src.deb and .deb packages I've looked
into, is we have 2 kindsa DDs, our friendly DDs keep upstream init
scripts intact in their src.debs and builds their .debs according to
the current Debian doctrine, some even allow in the upstream or
debianised init scripts to try support alternative init systems in
Debian, while the systemd crowd throws out all non-systemd upstream 
init system support to make both their .src.deb and .deb packages,
systemd-only.  
Some of these systemd folks may be doing the tactical thing of keeping
the upstream init support appearance.

..bottom line is, we need to look upstream. 

..another tool we have, is alien, that could use some TLC, allows us 
to look sideways to e.g. good old Slackware.com ;o)

> >  On the other hand, a unitfile *interpreter* is a different story,
> > I'm not sure this is viable as of now, and the risks look greater to
> > me in this case. IMO there are two scenarios.
> >
> >
> > 1) the interpreter is external to SysVinit/any_init init and is
> > called after each package update (by means of apt ?).  Still, any
> > bug that creeps through by leveraging unexpected unit file behaviour
> > will risk of breaking the interpreter *in the devuan user system*,
> > and this would negatively affect devuan reliability. Imagine the
> > backfire of a situation where the interpreter fails after a security
> > update for some obscure change in a unit file, so at service
> > start/stop or at next reboot the system goes astray.
> >
> > 2) the interpreter is run by the init process (bound to it some
> > way) and used each time a script is accessed. I'd rather not see
> > this, more complexity of this kind in the init process is bad for
> > system health.
> >
> > I agree the interpreter idea is technically intriguing, but bot
> > scenarios are a bit too close to reimplementing systemd, IMO.  I'd
> > rather develop something useful to t

Re: [DNG] Conversion script for maintainers

2019-12-03 Thread Denis Roio

dear Massimo,

you are very welcome :^) I'm happy to see here a fellow VUA :^D

down to business

> If (assuming that) we are going to lose the source of init scripts
> upstream, then it's the only way forward.  (For those who consider
> recognizing the unit files as a valid source a defeat: I may agree
> with you, but sometimes a strategic retreat can lead to victory).

I agree, but more than a defeat, this is a repairing strategy against
an hostile move. Those involved in Debian and SPI should acknowledge
they are being hostile to the UNIX community at large.

About having "an Interpreter, for the UnitFiles, that then internally
do things as SysVInit does": I have privately experimented with this
for a while now and there are corner-cases, but it is feasible, if
such cases can be taken care of.

You adress very well this issue with your reasoning:

> My impression is that it is viable building a batch init script
> generator, where package maintainers are able to check and validate
> the newly generated init scripts *in the maintainer test system*, as
> well as take care of any peculiar bug of the translation, or quirky
> behaviour of the unit files.

This would mean having two things at least:

1. a DSL parser for the conversion of unitfiles to shell scripts
   say "systemd2sysv".

2. an easy way to test the shell scripts generated, which is also
   crucial to the task: the quality of the testing environment.

3. optionally, a way to repackage and test semi-automatically an
   existing deb package undergoing this conversion.

I have experience writing DSL parsers and recommend using either:

1. stb_c_lexer by Sean Barrett, part of the STB C lib collection

2. libhammer by Meredith Patterson, part of langsec.org
   more complex, but way more secure, not sure if this level of
   security is needed however

Assuming of course whoever writes this likes to make it in C, which
I'd recommend.

I wholeheartedly agree with all your reasoning, quoted below. I don't
think that converting automatically at init or at package install is a
good idea: we need to keep this process under scrutiny by maintainers,
hoping more people will help Devuan, at least on converting scripts
for important packages, and make life easier for them.

> As it's systemd we are talking about, I wouldn't ever place a bet on
> stable and documented behaviour on its part. Otherwise we wouldn't
> be here on devuan ML, after all. When new peculiar behaviour is
> discovered, we can adapt the initscript generator. This would mean a
> huge effort on repacking debian packages, or having blanket-like
> packages with init"scripts" for SysV/openrc/any_init that provide
> the init support to all/groups of debian packages, possibly synced
> with major revisions of devuan.
>
>  On the other hand, a unitfile *interpreter* is a different story,
> I'm not sure this is viable as of now, and the risks look greater to
> me in this case. IMO there are two scenarios.
>
>
> 1) the interpreter is external to SysVinit/any_init init and is
> called after each package update (by means of apt ?).  Still, any
> bug that creeps through by leveraging unexpected unit file behaviour
> will risk of breaking the interpreter *in the devuan user system*,
> and this would negatively affect devuan reliability. Imagine the
> backfire of a situation where the interpreter fails after a security
> update for some obscure change in a unit file, so at service
> start/stop or at next reboot the system goes astray.
>
> 2) the interpreter is run by the init process (bound to it some
> way) and used each time a script is accessed. I'd rather not see
> this, more complexity of this kind in the init process is bad for
> system health.
>
> I agree the interpreter idea is technically intriguing, but bot
> scenarios are a bit too close to reimplementing systemd, IMO.  I'd
> rather develop something useful to the mantainers now, and keep the
> option to turn it into a package for the end user later on.  So I'd
> first go with 1) the offline translation, 2) get it stable enough
> that it can run automatically on any debian package updates, 3)
> monitor the amount of bugs and manual corrections needed, then 4)
> enable the initscript to be automatically generated and added to
> packages in devuan, 5) monitor again for errors 6) consider putting
> the interpreter in the final system.
> 
> We can have both solutions along this path but I think the solution
> with shorter development time and biggest advantage to maintainers
> should be prioritary.

many thanks

ciao

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Re: [DNG] Conversion script: was Formail for managing digests

2019-12-03 Thread Denis Roio
On Sat, 30 Nov 2019, Hendrik Boom wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 07:21:54PM +0100, Massimo Coppola wrote:
> 
> > 
> > If (assuming that) we are going to lose the source of init scripts
> > upstream, then it's the only way forward.  (For those who consider
> > recognizing the unit files as a valid source a defeat: I may agree
> > with you, but sometimes a strategic retreat can lead to victory).
> 
> If we are worried about losing init scripts upstream, I suggest we
> maintain a version-controlled collection if initscripts somewhere so
> that if one disappears from a package we can restore it.

This is what I'm really unsure of, so far. Every time I tried to
debate this with someone knowing Debian better than I do, we ended in
disagreement.

My opinion however is this: maintaining a *unique package* of version
controlled init scripts in Devuan is much, much easier than
maintaining a sysvinit script in each different package, forking it.

I'm not sure about pressing counter-arguments against this.

ciao

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