cinit
cinit is an init system for Posix systems. Like other new init systems, it tries to replace the old SysVinit . Its strengths are the support of profiles, the parallel starting of programs with hard (so-called "needs") and soft ("wants") dependencies. Due to the parallel process, it should start much faster than classic init systems that start sequentially.
history
The first version of cinit (0.1) was released in June 2005. Version 0.2 then followed relatively quickly. cinit was compared in version 0.2.1 in the Linux magazine with other init systems.
Current status
cinit is currently available in version 0.3pre19, which was published on November 26, 2009. Cinit is stable at the moment, but some functions are still missing (shutdown and start-up of services). In contrast to other alternative init systems, cinit is not very popular, which may be due to the lack of documentation in version 0.2. According to the author, cinit version 0.3 should no longer be Linux- specific, but also run under other operating systems such as FreeBSD or NetBSD .
functionality
cinit is configured using the so-called cconfig procedure (see below) under / etc / cinit . Normally the boot process begins with cinit building a dependency tree that starts below / etc / cinit / svc / init . However, this can be changed by specifying a profile. Then those services are started without dependency (the tree is processed from bottom to top, so to speak) until the first one has started.
Needs
Needs are hard dependencies. If a hard dependency of a service fails, it will not be started.
Wants
Wants are soft dependencies. An attempt is made to start the dependency before the dependent service, but if it fails, it is ignored and the dependent service starts anyway.
Profiles
If you pass the argument “cprofile:” and a name directly after it when starting cinit, this service will be started first instead of the init service.
License
cinit was initially distributed under the GPL in version 2 and switched to GPL in version 3 in August 2007.