dinit is a service supervisor with dependency support which can also act as the system "init" program. It was created with the intention of providing a portable init system with dependency management, that was functionally superior to many extant inits.
Install the dinit package.
Dinit service packages are named package_name-dinit and, when installed, will be available in /etc/dinit.d.
dinit
dinitcheck - check service configuration
dinitctl - control services supervised by Dinit
dinit-monitor - monitor services or environment supervised by Dinit
/etc/dinit.d/ - user-installed dinit service files
/usr/lib/dinit.d/ - system dinit service files
/etc/dinit.d/config/ - configurations for dinit services
/etc/dinit.d/boot.d/ - dinit services that run on boot
/usr/lib/dinit/ - dinit wrapper scripts
/var/log/dinit/ - logs for dinit services
/etc/dinit.d/service_name-pre - preparation service, in some cases, this is needed because the "preparation" must be run as root but the service itself must be run as its own user
/etc/dinit.d/user - user services (see User services)
Nearly every interaction with dinit are done with the dinitctl program.
# dinitctl start service_name
# dinitctl stop service_name
# dinitctl reload service_name
# dinitctl restart service_name
# dinitctl enable service_name
# ln -sf /etc/dinit.d/service_name /etc/dinit.d/boot.d/
# dinitctl disable service_name
# dinitctl list
dinitcheck is usually used if to check if there is any problem with the dinit service directory, it will check for any syntax errors, invalid parameter values, and dependency cycles.
dinit handles tty through getty service. You can configure active ttys through /etc/dinit.d/config/console.conf
To modify individual ttys, you can copy (do NOT delete) /etc/dinit.d/config/agetty-default.conf to your desired tty (e.g. /etc/dinit.d/config/agetty-tty1.conf)
Inside, you'll see the contents like
# DO NOT REMOVE THIS FILE! # Note: You can copy and rename this file to the name of the tty you # want (e.g.: /etc/dinit.d/config/agetty-tty1.conf will make a # configuration specific to tty1) GETTY_BAUD=38400 GETTY_TERM=linux GETTY_ARGS=
You can modify the files according to agetty(1), which allows one to autologin.
TBA
A typical service file looks like this:
type = process | bgprocess | scripted | internal command = /path/to/servicename restart = (boolean) smooth-recovery = (boolean) logfile = ... depends-on = (service name) waits-for = (service name)
There are five types of dinit services:
process, for foreground daemons
bgprocess, for forking daemons
scripted, for oneshots
internal, which is only useful inside dinit and is usually used to "gather" lots of dependencies into one big dependency, or similar to "bundle" in s6.
triggered, which is similar to internal services, but an external trigger is required before they will start.
There are three types of dependencies:
depends-on is hard dependency, so if any service is named here, it must run no matter what before the service is started
depends-ms is a milestone dependency, so while the rules of depends-on apply when starting service, if the dependency stopped, the dependent will still run
waits-for is soft dependency, while the service will wait for its dependency to run, it will still run if the dependency fails
For more details, see dinit-service(5).
There are two methods to run dinit services under your user. You can either use dinit-user-spawn (the default), or turnstile (avoid using both simultaneously). Both methods are described below:
Using dinit-user-spawn: Install the dinit-user-spawn package:
sudo pacman -S dinit-user-spawn
If the service is not already enabled, then run the following as root:
dinitctl enable dinit-user-spawn
You should now immediately have a dinit instance running as your user. You can check by running dinitctl list as your user, and should see something like:
$ dinitctl list
[[+] ] boot
[{+} ] system
[{+} ] dbus
Further documentation can be found on the project's github.
Using turnstile: Install the turnstile turnstile-dinit packages:
sudo pacman -S turnstile turnstile-dinit
Enable turnstile
dinitctl enable turnstiled
Relogin and check
$ dinitctl list
[[+] ] boot
[{+} ] system
[{+} ] dbus
Using manual alternative: Note, there is a third manual way. You can instead manually launch dinit or similar yourself, for example by having the following in your bashrc:
if ! pgrep -u "$USER" dinit > /dev/null; then
dinit --user
fi
However, you will need to manually manage dinit, and create the relevant folders it expects.
Generally make sure
$:cat ~/.config/dinit.d/enviroment DISPLAY=:0
Explicitly reference the enviroment file in the service, where <USER> is the user path
env-file = /home/<USER>/.config/dinit.d/enviroment
For example we create a service for installed volumeicon:
We make sure ~/.config/dinit.d/enviroment contains DISPLAY=:0
Edit as root
/etc/dinit.d/user/volumeicon
to
type = process command = /usr/bin/volumeicon logfile = $HOME/.local/state/dinit/volumeicon.log env-file = /home/<USER>/.config/dinit.d/enviroment restart = true
Check User service
$: dinitcheck volumeicon Checking service: volumeicon... dinitcheck: Warning: Variable substitution performed by dinitcheck for file paths may not match dinit daemon (environment may differ); use --online to avoid this warning Performing secondary checks... Secondary checks complete. No problems found.
Enable
$:dinitctl enable volumeicon Service 'volumeicon' has been enabled. Service 'volumeicon' started.
Check list
$:dinitctl list
[[+] ] boot
[{+} ] system
[{+} ] dbus (pid: 875)
[{+} ] pipewire (pid: 879)
[{+} ] pipewire-pulse (pid: 881)
[{+} ] wireplumber (pid: 880)
[{+} ] volumeicon (pid: 16945)