Re: runit SIGPWR support

[fungal-net]

It might be plain ignorance on my side but is there a possibility
that some malicious outsider's intent be able to induce a SIGPWR
signal just to fool the system to shut down?  If so then hardcoding
it as an autoresponse would be perceived as a weakness.  The choice
for any sysadmin to use the kernel signal and direct it to any
designed chosen process is still open without it.

Re: runit SIGPWR support

[fungal-net]

Jeff:
> 
> you should patch the code, runit is dead anyway.
> try something along this lines in the source:
> 
> #ifdef SIGPWR
>   /* handle that one */
>   ...
> #endif
> 
> i can't see the problem, you have to patch the runit sources to
> fulfil your requirements since that project is dead and the code
> is not maintained anymore.

As far as void is concerned runit is alive and well.  They also have
many scripts written to make power tasks simple like sleep called zzz

Artix has runit scripts for apcupsd, if that helps any.

Re: State of skarnet.org projects

[fungal-net]

Steve Litt:
> On Mon, 3 Feb 2020 11:40:07 +0200
> fungal-net  wrote:
> 
>> Steve Litt:
>>> On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 12:34:05 +0200
>>> fungal-net  wrote:
>>>   
>>>> Void is also
>>>> very close, I for one use it with s6 and 66 for a while now and in
>>>> many ways being more carefree than obarun having fast balls thrown
>>>> by arch daily.  
>>>
>>> Have you, or are you going to, write documentation on how to install
>>> and maintain s6 (and presumably s6-rc) on Void? Are you using Void's
>>> s6* packages, or do you compile the stuff yourself? If you install
>>> Void's s6* packages, does that remove runit? I'd like to have both,
>>> to a/b them against each other and to more quickly learn s6*.  
>>
>> All s6 related packages are available on the repository (I believe all
>> current).  I think this work begun and was carried out by Duncaen (a
>> void main member) and he didn't give up, he just realized I think that
>> it would take fundamental void changes to incorporate it as an
>> official alternative.
>> Mobinmob stepped in and brought 66 and libs into void and is
>> maintaining them (currently 1 version behind obarun).  The official
>> documentation for 66 is https://web.obarun.org/software as well as
>> https://wiki.obarun.org/ and due to cross-distribution rules and
>> requests Eric caved into the pressure and provides both html and man
>> pages in the 66 pkg and tools.
>> What is missing from void are the ready made service files that are
>> available to copy/paste from https://framagit.org/pkg/observice
>> and place them into  /usr/share/66/service (instead of obarun's
>> /usr/lib/66/service).  The most important is the boot bundle enabled
>> in the boot tree.
>> https://web.obarun.org/software/66/frontend.html  --> Prototype
>> template of a service file.  Use only the fields that pertain to your
>> service
> 
> If I read between the lines, it sounds like you're saying the
> best way to learn s6 is to install and run Obarun. I have a spare
> machine on which I could do that.

No, I didn't mean to convey such message, it is best to try both s6 and
66 in the distro you are most familiar with.  Here is an example of
trying it on antiX http://sysdfree.wordpress.com/291

As I see mobinmob's response, he is being modest and very reserved.
Void works great with s6/66.  On my experience only ntpd service needed
a small alteration to work out of the box from obarun to void due to the
ntp/openntp difference.  Running resources on the same installation were
nearly identical.  I can't justify and quantify it but it feels the
system became more responsive (quicker).

> Do you think the best and easiest way of learning s6 and the best way
> to use s6 is to install Obarun?

If you can clone your void installation on the same system, different
partition and boot it, do the switch there so you have a better base to
compare with.  If you make the transformation through chroot you will
not have to worry about poweroff/reboot failing, or save runit's reboot
temporarily for that one time.
Pay attention to how void splits some packages into elements so there
may be pkg-n and pkg-n-dev that makes the whole.  This applies to both
s6 and 66.
Feel free to send me any questions on the test.

> Thanks,
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt 
> February 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive

Re: State of skarnet.org projects

[fungal-net]

Laurent Bercot:
>> I'd like to know what is your view and feeling of this expanding base,
>> what does it mean to you, and whether you see an influence of the
>> project by the growing popularity.  If I can interpret this announcement
>> correctly you seem already to be reacting to the Debian s6 incorporation
>> fiasco more than the projects who have treated s6 with greater respect.
> 
>  I don't quite understand what you mean.
>  I love that the s6 base is expanding, I really appreciate that we have
>  a community around it, and I've always been committed to supporting it.

I mean ...  (why is this Arlo Guthrie kind of voice coming into my head,
I mean ), I think constructive criticism (public) of 66 is over due,
being the piece of software that can make someone from UX0 (windows XP)
switch to linux/s6 in an hour and not get lost.  It was Dec2018 I first
tried it, and that was late beta testing.  It is 2020 now.  What 66 does
with a short command it may take someone months to recreate with runit.

>  I keep repeating that I'm always willing to help people who are trying
> to integrate s6 in their projects; it just so happens that, for many
> excellent reasons, I don't get many requests. But when people reach out
> to me, I try to make good on the promise: for instance, making
> s6-linux-init sysvinit-compatible was a request from Adélie Linux; it
> took about two weeks of vacation time and a few week-ends; 100% worth,
> because that's what made it possible to have s6 as init in Adélie, which
> I'm very happy with and grateful to the whole Adélie community for.

Compiling and installing very very commonly used software in Adélie is
for a very limited UX spectrum.  Some of us are at an age where we don't
have that much time to wait for Adélie to mature... Not Adélie's
problem, I know.

>  The big pain point for further s6 integration in distros, as _every
> single one_ of those I contacted told me, is the user interface, and that
> UX return is basically driving my career. It is a big project that will
> need a lot of focused, uninterrupted time, so I'm currently trying to
> max out my earnings over 3 years so I'm able to take a whole year off to
> work on that project.

Even if contra-IBM hired you and paid you 6 figures to do "all" of it
for "all" UX levels, I think you would need a team to be able to keep up
with "all" of it.  It would be very inefficient use of your paid time to
waste three days to figure out what "plasma" needs today, it didn't need
yesterday, in order to work.  Unless you are planning your own
skar-desktop for the next 5 years.  3+1 = 5 ... why do those 5year
projects remind me of something :)

>  The Debian thing is a minor annoyance; it took two week-ends and a couple
> evenings to address it. You see me address minor annoyances more than The
> Big Request because it's all I have time and energy for while working on
> an outside contract. Maintenance things, tweaks around the edges, light
> QoL adjustments, and community support on IRC; no big developments.

At a quarter thousandth of UX it took me 10' to move execline to another
directory, but I don't love debian any more today than I did 3 years ago
when my wheezy finally terminally broke.

>  So, in that context, I don't understand your point; could you clarify?

Exactly what you said, you can spend 3 weekends and some dark mornings
to always be fixing what Debian devs will mess up in 23" and will not
have to respond to your inquiries.  Portability to Apple and android
should not be an issue for s6.  **F*** them!  I'll hold the oil lamp so
you don't miss!  If you get rich putting IBM out of business I would be
the happiest homeless bicyclist out there.

>  On a related note, it should now be obvious that the main obstacle to
> further s6 growth is the lack of time I can spend on it, and that comes
> directly from the need to self-fund. As a consequence (and I'm addressing
> the whole community here), if you like s6 - or other projects of mine -
> and want to see it become more widely adopted, the best thing you can do
> is find me sponsors! Long-term sponsoring would allow me to work on these
> projects full-time, and *then* they would take off.

 “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.”

― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

>  Laurent

Stop being reasonable, you are scaring me!  With the little I know,
always learning and catching up, the power that hides between you and
Eric is enough to stop the open/free software industry on its feet and
turn it around towards a healthier direction.  Not in 5, not in 4 years,
but by the end of Spring 2020.  Then you can let me mediate how much you
and Eric, and under what terms, are you willing to accept an exclusive
interview by Distrowatch.  Your turn to hold the lamp!

Re: State of skarnet.org projects

[fungal-net]

Steve Litt:
> On Sun, 2 Feb 2020 12:34:05 +0200
> fungal-net  wrote:
> 
>> Void is also
>> very close, I for one use it with s6 and 66 for a while now and in
>> many ways being more carefree than obarun having fast balls thrown by
>> arch daily.
> 
> Have you, or are you going to, write documentation on how to install
> and maintain s6 (and presumably s6-rc) on Void? Are you using Void's
> s6* packages, or do you compile the stuff yourself? If you install
> Void's s6* packages, does that remove runit? I'd like to have both, to
> a/b them against each other and to more quickly learn s6*.

All s6 related packages are available on the repository (I believe all
current).  I think this work begun and was carried out by Duncaen (a
void main member) and he didn't give up, he just realized I think that
it would take fundamental void changes to incorporate it as an official
alternative.
Mobinmob stepped in and brought 66 and libs into void and is maintaining
them (currently 1 version behind obarun).  The official documentation
for 66 is https://web.obarun.org/software as well as
https://wiki.obarun.org/ and due to cross-distribution rules and
requests Eric caved into the pressure and provides both html and man
pages in the 66 pkg and tools.
What is missing from void are the ready made service files that are
available to copy/paste from https://framagit.org/pkg/observice
and place them into  /usr/share/66/service (instead of obarun's
/usr/lib/66/service).  The most important is the boot bundle enabled in
the boot tree.
https://web.obarun.org/software/66/frontend.html  --> Prototype template
of a service file.  Use only the fields that pertain to your service

> It seems trivial to me to deploy s6 stage 2 and migrate all my runit
> stage2 to s6 stage 2. However, migrating stage 1 sounds to me like an
> Einsteinian task. Runit's stage 1 repeatedly loops through .d
> directories in what I find to be an unobvious way.

Although I love riding my single speed 80s Bridgestone around the
neighborhood, on a long day's ride I prefer my disk braked 27s touring
contraption.  It makes life easier and the ride pleasant.  "Weight is
about the same".  I don't expect others to understand here, but you do.
It is a comparison between runit and s6/66.

> It seems to me that Void is getting more popular every day, and Void
> could serve as a Rosetta Stone between runit and s6. I'd appreciate any
> documentation you have or will write in the future concerning your use
> of s6* on Void.

I think void is at the verge of make or break.  What it needs is not
software but formal organization.  A group of friends can be very
effective till a crisis of friendship erupts.  When you work on a Ford
type assembly line what you do between whistles/horns is formal
organization, what noses you break in the break time are irrelevant or
with who you choose to get drunk between shifts.  When the horn blows
again you better be sober at your station, if you have any respect for
the work that you do yourself.  The tower of Babel is not around to
admire.  Formal organization does not imply a hierarchy, there have been
other ways.

> Thanks,
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt 
> February 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive

To quickly answer your question, before mobinmob steps into the plate, I
would recommend this https://wiki.obarun.org/doku.php?id=66intro before
anything else.  What applies there it worked for 7-8 distributions it
was tried on.  Runit could be present, there are no conflicts, I choose
to remove it but runit-void better stay there, so it has to be force
separated.  I believe a solution where s6-void would conflict runit-void
would help, so what is needed on one is present on the other, but a mix
of the two that you are proposing should also be considered.  On artix
they force this separation to make the shift between three systems quick
and easy for all UX levels. :)

gus

Re: State of skarnet.org projects

[fungal-net]

Is it 10 years now that s6 has been around, more or less.  For 10 year
old software of its nature it appears as the best kept secret.  There
are 3 distributions openly available to various levels of users'
expertise, that are now utilizing s6 init and supervision, Obarun for 4
years, Adelie for about 1, and Artix for a few days.  Void is also very
close, I for one use it with s6 and 66 for a while now and in many ways
being more carefree than obarun having fast balls thrown by arch daily.

This should open up the base of people using s6 in a variety of
architectures and purposes, and will inevitably stress test the ability
and reliability of s6, while it may create a significant stress to
skarnet's ability to communicate with all this testing feedback.

I'd like to know what is your view and feeling of this expanding base,
what does it mean to you, and whether you see an influence of the
project by the growing popularity.  If I can interpret this announcement
correctly you seem already to be reacting to the Debian s6 incorporation
fiasco more than the projects who have treated s6 with greater respect.

In solidarity
Gus

Re: The "Unix Philosophy 2020" document

[fungal-net]

Casper Ti. Vector:
> On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 11:37:19PM +0800, Casper Ti. Vector wrote:
>> Now I know the reason.  "Your account is too young.  Please wait
>> at least 5 days to begin posting." --- /u/AutoModerator
> 
> Another try:
> .
> Given the result, it seems that attempts at posting to r/linux would be
> futile anyway; however, someone did this:
> .
> 

I wouldn't mind reposting this for you if you had asked me yesterday, or
about 18 hours ago, as I have an older decorated account.  As soon as I
post there I have bots voting me down within seconds, inconceivable for
some to have read and voted based on content THAT fast.
But this time I tried to alert Arch users of the nearly silent
conversion of compression algorithms on arch packaging from xz (43 year
old code) to facebook's zstd (at best 3 years but really testing begins
with arch users).

Not only was the post removed and I was cursed (but no rational
arguments against what I was "reporting") when I complained later for
the unjustified removal of the post by the time I woke up this morning I
was banned, couldn't even respond to all the derogatory comments.
My funny post of wishing everyone a happy 2020 was this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/ejn5c5/arch_2020_welcomes_its_little_brothers_and/

The data for comparing xz to zstd is published here, by an arch person
proposing and supporting the change.
https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2019-March/029520.html

You tell me if you would have decided the same as a logical person, but
one who pays for disk space and server bandwidth out of your pocket, not
having university mirrors around the world paying for your facebook
experimentation.

You pay the tab for facebook's testing of their future closed code
gadget/system doing mass storage/retrieval work, for who knows who!

If you are an arch user guinea pig you have been warned now, post
removed, reporter permanently silenced.

Sorry, I can not be of help at this time.

My original post is here:  http://sysdfree.wordpress.com/292
For the first time in 2.5yrs of blogging anti-systemd propaganda ONE
article  has 10 time more visits in less than 24hrs than the whole blog
(nearly 300 articles) has for a whole day.  So someone is interested.

PS  By the way, one of the searches run to find the blog today was
"devuan s6".  Wordpress stats report search engine terms of hitting the
site.

PS2 If you hear I died in a car crash, don't believe it, I have no car!
I cycle everywhere for safety :) and the environment.

Re: Debian and init freedom (logging freedom?)

[fungal-net]

Jonathan de Boyne Pollard:
> fungal-net:
> 
>> While upgrading my antiX-sid (Debian) with s6 and 66 installed today
>>
> … the system enforced Debian policy on you, which you had violated by
> using UIDs less than 100 for your private "log" and "s6log" accounts. 
> Debian Policy §9.2.2 reserves UIDs less than 100 to Debian, for global
> assignment.
> 
> *
> https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html#uid-and-gid-classes
> 
> Observe in contrast that the nosh toolset employs UIDs in the ordinary
> dynamic range for log accounts.

I plead guilty, I am a common Debian violator and I deserve to be
sentenced as the Debian house of elders decides.  They should add my
case to their ballot and vote for my sentence.

 jahoba ..jahoba ... jahobaa 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffwFXGPRDu4

Debian and init freedom (logging freedom?)

[fungal-net]

While upgrading my antiX-sid (Debian) with s6 and 66 installed today I
got two interesting messages.

This is copy paste from the terminal screen.  If systemd-log is on the
/etc/ files then you have nothing to worry about.  :)
At least they ask whether you allow Lenny to sweep your /etc/ for you.


Package configuration

 ┌┤ Configuring base-passwd
├┐
 │
│
 │ update-passwd has found a difference between your system accounts and
the current Debian defaults.  It│
 │ is advisable to allow update-passwd to change your system; without
those changes some packages might not  │
 │ work correctly.  For more documentation on the Debian account
policies, please see│
 │ /usr/share/doc/base-passwd/README.
│
 │
│
 │ The proposed change is:
│
 │
│
 │ Remove group "log" (19)
│
 │
│
 │ If you allow this change, a backup of modified files will be made
with the extension .org, which you can  │
 │ use if necessary to restore the current settings.  If you do not make
this change now, you can make it│
 │ later with the update-passwd utility.
│
 │
│
 │ Do you want to remove the group log?
│
 │
│
 │   
 │
 │
│
 
└───┘






 ┌┤ Configuring base-passwd
├┐
 │
│
 │ update-passwd has found a difference between your system accounts and
the current Debian defaults.  It│
 │ is advisable to allow update-passwd to change your system; without
those changes some packages might not  │
 │ work correctly.  For more documentation on the Debian account
policies, please see│
 │ /usr/share/doc/base-passwd/README.
│
 │
│
 │ The proposed change is:
│
 │
│
 │ Remove user "s6log" (19)
│
 │
│
 │ If you allow this change, a backup of modified files will be made
with the extension .org, which you can  │
 │ use if necessary to restore the current settings.  If you do not make
this change now, you can make it│
 │ later with the update-passwd utility.
│
 │
│
 │ Do you want to remove the user s6log?
│
 │
│
 │   
 │
 │
│
 └

Re: s6 usability

[fungal-net]

As a test for portability for the 66 software, other than its display
case based on arch - called obarun - a couple of devs recently tried it
in a few distributions that have the s6 in their repository.

Funtoo was the first target
https://forum.obarun.org/viewtopic.php?id=956 and this was done by a dev
who used plasma on obarun and used plasma on funtoo.

Void has s6 and 66 is under testing but boot-66serv has to be installed
separately with a modification to match void's choice of placing
services in /usr/share instead of the original /usr/lib.  With 6-7
commands and it booted to a tty of choice.  I've been using it daily
since (I was shown the way) in musl flavor.  A delight and a more
responsive system (feels that way) than the OEM runit.  I wish I had one
of the 7-9 alternative void architectures to do further testing but all
I have is refurbished tired x64s.
https://forum.obarun.org/viewtopic.php?id=957

Then there was adelie and kiss (an alpha system with similarities to
gentoo but installs in little time)
https://forum.obarun.org/viewtopic.php?id=961
https://forum.obarun.org/viewtopic.php?id=959 with similar ease.

With debian there is the obstacle of s6 being intentionally broken by
dislocated skalibs but I am speculating there is more to it.  How often
has a broken package been available in the 4 level hierarchy of debian?
If it was on experimental I can understand, but there are two versions,
recent and previous s6 and libs, both broken, in sid,testing,stable.  I
may be paranoid but isn't this also preventing devuan and antiX (and its
MX derivative) from effectively trying s6 unless they uniquely rename
the packages confusing users?

I know that the scope of this list is in hacking experimental init and
service supervision software but what better way to test the work other
than displaying it in more popular distributions?
All one needs past s6 is boot-66serv
# git clone https://framagit.org/obarun/boot-66serv
# cd boot-66serv
# ./configure --bindir=/usr/bin --shebangdir=/usr/bin
--with-system-service=/usr/lib-{or share or whatever}/66/service
# make install

I think it would take an earth-shaking new development for someone to
pry me away from 66 for years to come, if I have that much left in me.

PS  I am writing this still shaking in anger from reading Jesse Smith's
Distrowatch review of Obarun, using an old image with a previous
installer, declining its initial prompt to update the installer and
theme, failing the installation and moving on to bluestar, a desktop
theme customizer of arch, and finding it wonderful.  This is after
listing Obarun for 1.5 years, declining to correct its information for
more than 7 months, and bad mouthing it, in the same article where its
headline lists Devuan as Debuan2.1.  Same guy reviewed Adelie (near its
beta life end) and failed to see s6 in it.

Has RH and its mother... IBM converted the open and free software world
into a head-butting ring?  No, there are others at fault for that as
well.  Arch for example is pushing facebook's compression algorithm into
its packaging by default.  I am now going to shut off this machine and
take my 30yo Bridgestone cycle with friction shifters out for a ride in
this fine sunny wintery day, because I am getting too disgusted from
doing any real work, hopefully no big truck will run in my way.  :)
Did you know there are now about 3 corporations responsible for about
90% of the bikes made?  A "free" choice among 1300 models.

Re: interesting claims

[fungal-net]

Guillermo:
>> But although I got curious what "kill -9 -1" would do to different
>> systems I don't see the usefulness of this.
> 
> Since you actually went ahead and did it, and reported the results,
> for me it was interesting to see if they matched what theory says that
> would happen. They did (assuming that what you wrote about the s6 case
> means that the system more or less reconstructed itself).

I am glad some of you can tell more than I can about this, and since you
did I tried my weirdest of setups.  This is Adélie adelielinux.org
installation on HD.  Although it is confusing to me how they set this up
still, after months of following its development (beta3), there is
sysvinit on the first steps of booting then OpenRC takes over, and then
s6-supervisor handles everything running.  It is like a fruit punch in
my eyes.  For those that don't know this is built on musl.

# kill -9 -1  on tty1 brought me back to tty1 login screen with 5 more
ttys active.  So everything is respawned almost instantly to a system
just like it had just booted.  Doing the same from terminal on X had the
same exact outcome.

> Thanks,
> G.

One of the reasons I am trying to learn more about init in general and
porting s6 to a different system is to use either Adélie or Void-musl
and have pure s6 on them.  Recent efforts with void failed, except for
using arch kernel building and installing Obarun's pkgs into void.  Not
very clean but works for months.  Dracut is a thing I still need to
learn about as obstacle #1.

Both s6/s6-rc and 66 pkgs are available through void's repositories but
s6-rc has been modified and I haven't been able to get it to work.
Void uses arch-like /bin /sbin --> /usr/bin, Adélie has more traditional
4 separate directories.

Re: interesting claims

[fungal-net]

The tests I did were on live images run as vm-s

Jeff:
> 18.05.2019, 00:58, "Guillermo" :
>>>  OpenRC: Nice,
>>>    init
>>> |_ zsh
>>>    when I exited the shell there was nothing but a dead cursor on my screen
> 
> in this case the shell is not signaled since "-1" does not signal the sending
> process.
>> May I ask what was this setup like? You made a different entry for
>> sysvinit, presumably with the customary getty processes configured in
>> /etc/inittab 'respawn' entries, judging by your results, so how was
>> the OpenRC case different?
> 
> i also wondered whether he used openrc-init here ?
> in that case he may have also used openrc's "supervise-daemon" util
> which do not get restarted after they were terminated by the kill -1 -9
> blast and hence cannot respawn the gettys. looks like you were pretty
> hosed when you quit the super-user zsh (which sent the kill blast via
> its "kill" builtin) ?

I remember seeing this although I may have mixed it up.  I have a few
Artix-OpenRC images and an older Manjaro-OpenRC which was a predecessor.
 Running both again didn't produce this result.  They just froze with a
dash on the top left of the screen, didn't poweroff. So I am puzzled now
what I mixed up.

> you should provide more information on the used init here as openrc
> is not an init per se and works well with sysv + busybox init, runit, ...

This is clearly the case of OpenRC in some early Refracta images I have,
I didn't use them.  The Devuan version of OpenRC works as an additional
service supervisor.  In Artix if there are sysv type of scripts must be
limited in the early parts of booting.

> 
>>>  sysV: init and 6 ttys with shell ... nothing can kill it that I know off.
> 
> what do you mean here ?
> were the gettys respawned by SysV init or did they not die at all ?
> where did you send the signal from ?
> i would assume from a super-user zsh on a console tty ?

I am pretty sure I used a Devuan/Miyo image on this one, and I am pretty
sure they were respawned time after time of trying it again, as pids
were higher numbered.

For runit I used one Artix and one void, they seem to behave the same.

But although I got curious what "kill -9 -1" would do to different
systems I don't see the usefulness of this.  What could possibly,
without intention, do such a thing to a system?  An
intruder/virus/trojan trying to mess up your system?  I can't see that
software would malfunction to do something like this.

My initial inquiry was what it would be like killing things and going
down to 1 and whether you can rebuild from there, still a tty is needed,
or an ssh serving daemon to access such system.  And this is only just
reversing stage 2, right?