Announcement: dmd -0.7

Announcement: dmd -0.7

[Wolfgang Jaehrling]

;; Announcement: dmd -0.7                           -*- scheme -*-

(define about-this-release
  "This is the second public release of dmd, the `Daemon managing
Daemons' (or `Daemons-managing Daemon'?).  This version adds many
convenient features and is thus a huge step forward, but still it is
experimental software and you should expect it to break.")

(define about-the-software
  "The dmd program is a service manager, i.e. on the GNU system (which
is the primary target), it replaces /sbin/init completely, on systems
which are similar to Unix (e.g. GNU/Linux) it replaces the part of
/sbin/init that is responsible for switching runlevels (/etc/rc?.d and
/etc/init.d come to mind), respawning services (/etc/inittab comes to
mind) and similar things.")

(get-it-from "<http://www.8ung.at/shell/dmd--0.7.tar.gz>")

(define requirements
  "It is written for Guile 1.6.  That is all you need.  Using it with
Guile 1.4 will require small modifications, but better don't bother.")

(define future-directions
  "Various things will be added in the future, including runlevels, an
update-rc.d implementation for Debian, support for existing SysV Init
infrastructure, internationalization, evaluating configuration code in
a sandbox, a graphical interface frontend and many others.")

;; Cheers,
;; GNU/Wolfgang


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Re: Announcement: dmd -0.7

[tomas]

On Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 09:44:52PM +0200, Wolfgang Jaehrling wrote:
> ;; Announcement: dmd -0.7                           -*- scheme -*-
> 

[...]

> (define about-the-software
>   "The dmd program is a service manager, i.e. on the GNU system (which
> is the primary target), it replaces /sbin/init completely, [...]

[...]

Hey! you stole my idea ;-)

Seriously. I've been pondering about such an init replacement with a built
in interpreter (and Guile is an obvious choice) for quite a while now --
ever since the olden days when Lutz Donnerhacke presented his init replacement
at Linux Kongress 1999. I'm thrilled that you are tackling it.

> (define future-directions
>   "Various things will be added in the future, including runlevels, an
> update-rc.d implementation for Debian, support for existing SysV Init
> infrastructure, internationalization, evaluating configuration code in
> a sandbox, a graphical interface frontend and many others.")

Hrm. Have you considered a more dependency-oriented approach, where you
have `services' you want to have running which depend on other services
(a run level could be just a top-level service). This would manage the
starting order of things in an elegant way.

(If that's old things for you please excuse me for stating the obvious,
but then I think this would be a feature to include in the announcement).

Thanks
-- tomas


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Re: Announcement: dmd -0.7

[Wolfgang Jaehrling]

On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 10:11:43AM +0200, tomas@fabula.de wrote:
> Hey! you stole my idea ;-)

The idea of a service manager that works with dependencies and
conflicts is an idea which many people had so far, independend from
each other.  However, I never had this idea myself, I am just
implementing it.  The idea of using an `extension' language in the
service manager a) is somewhat obvious, since you need
service-specific code anyway, though usually people make the mistake
of using /bin/sh for that purpose  b) is not an idea I had either - I
used Guile simply because it makes developing just so much easier and
more fun.

> (If that's old things for you please excuse me for stating the obvious,
> but then I think this would be a feature to include in the announcement).

I did not mention any features, actually. :-)

(define features-of-dmd
  '("Services can depend on other services, conflict with other
services, and provide virtual services.  Dependencies are resolved
automatically, of course.  Respawning of services is supported as
well.  If services are respawning too fast, they will be disabled."
    "A command line tool (called `deco') for conveniently starting and
stopping services (and performing many other actions on them) is part
of the dmd distribution."
    "Since this version, deco displays what dmd is doing, so you can
run dmd in the background (or put it there with the new action
`daemonize') without output to a terminal.  Also, passing relative
file names to deco is now (sensefully) possible."
    "It is entirely written in Guile, therefore the configuration is
also done with a Guile script."
    "Saving the state (i.e. which services are running) on exit and
restoring it on next startup can easiely be done."
    "It can not only be used as the system-wide service manager, but
also by unprivileged users, if desired.  So if you want to test it,
you are not required to do things which might destroy your existing
system."
    "Many other features you can read about in the documentation,
which is comprehensive and almost complete."))

Cheers,
GNU/Wolfgang


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Re: Announcement: dmd -0.7

[tomas]

On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 07:40:20PM +0200, Wolfgang Jaehrling wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 03, 2003 at 10:11:43AM +0200, tomas@fabula.de wrote:
> > Hey! you stole my idea ;-)
> 
> The idea of a service manager that works with dependencies and
> conflicts is an idea which many people had so far, independend from
> each other.  However, I never had this idea myself, I am just
> implementing it.  The idea of using an `extension' language in the
> service manager a) is somewhat obvious, since you need
> service-specific code anyway, though usually people make the mistake
> of using /bin/sh for that purpose  b) is not an idea I had either - I
> used Guile simply because it makes developing just so much easier and
> more fun.

In hindsight, many good ideas are obvious. Besides, my sentence above
was rather a way of expressing my joy that someone (you) is actually
doing it.

> I did not mention any features, actually. :-)
> 
> (define features-of-dmd
[dependencies, conflicts, respawning]
[command line tool]
[Guile]
[save state]

Very cool. It seems we are back to the power of inittab with the
flexibility of /etc/init.d. Plus dependencies, etc.

Actually, yesterday my colleague Ralf downloaded it and kept
praising the features, so by now I already know :-)

Thanks
-- tomas


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Re: Announcement: dmd -0.7

[Andreas Fuchs]

On 2003-04-02, Wolfgang Jaehrling <pro-linux@gmx.de> wrote:
> (get-it-from "<http://www.8ung.at/shell/dmd--0.7.tar.gz>")

ABORT: server www.8ung.at does not respond.

Do you need a mirror? I'm sure we could arrange something. (-:

Thanks for writing dmd,
-- 
Andreas Fuchs, <asf@acm.org>, asf@jabber.at, antifuchs



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Re: Announcement: dmd -0.7

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: Wolfgang Jaehrling <pro-linux@gmx.de>
   Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 21:44:52 +0200

   Guile 1.4 will require small modifications,
   but better don't bother.

does this mean you are refusing patches?

thi


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