Since I have recently installed a second LFS server (for testing and development), I just thought I might want to convert the existing bootscripts into LSB compatible ones. In fact, I have created a minimal set of scripts to boot the system, and for now it seems to work.
But I need a little feedback here. The LSB init functions for providing feedback to the end-user seem to be functions that provide this information *after* a process has started. It might not always be clear what the boot script is waiting for. Maybe you all can help find a solution for this. Let me describe what I have written so far:
The /lib/lsb/init-functions provides some basic functionality as described in the LSB specification. For example:
log_failure_msg "Could not start process"
This results in the boot script echoing
[FAIL] Could not start process
With the word FAIL of course being red. But well, maybe someone else will want some other output, so what happens inside the "logging" functions might nog really be that important. But the (adjusted) scripts in /etc/init.d look like this:
command
case "${?}" in
0) log_success_msg "Some success message" ;;
*) log_failure_msg "Some failure message" ;;
esacWell, if the command takes 10 seconds to complete, the bootscript is waiting, but the end user doesn't know what he's waiting for. Also, the command might create some output.
I have also adjusted the way the /etc/rc.d/rc*.d work, for example the /etc/rc.d/rc0.d contains the symlink 80-stop-network, pointing to ../../init.d/network. The /etc/rc.d/rc script calls /etc/init.d/network with the parameter "stop" so that the network is stopped at the right moment. This way, one could also create /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/20-restart-network so that the network is restarted if it is already active, or started if not, or /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/38-reload-httpd so that Apache is gracefully restarted.
It would make the boot system more flexible. The old scripts could only start or kill processes. The LSB specification imply this can be improved a bit.
More questions: the LSB specifications mention "facilities" like $local_fs and $network, but is not very clear on the implementation of it all. I have therefore just created /etc/init.d/local_fs and /etc/init.d/network as I think that the install_initd scripts should provide any implementation logic (and should therefore be included with the LSB compliant package). Also: if the /etc/init.d scripts themselves include their own requirements, the install_initd script should probably automatically create the symbolic links and should make sure the scripts are called in the correct order. This problem can be resolved later on.
I apologize for the incoherent post, as I'm still brainstorming on this subject, and any feedback might provide quite useful.
Last but not least: should this be a LFS package, of should such a package be a small project on it's own?
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