procd init scripts

A procd init script is similiar to an old init script, but with a few differences:

  • procd expects services to start as if they were to run in the foreground, but of course procd runs them the background.
  • Different shebang line: #!/bin/sh /etc/rc.common
  • procd expects that shell variable (not environment variable) initscript is set to the path of the script that invoked it
  • Explicitly use procd USE_PROCD=1

Example:

#!/bin/sh /etc/rc.common
 
USE_PROCD=1

Init script has to handle two main tasks:

  1. Define current configuration (state) for service instance(s)
  2. Specify when (and optionally how) to reconfigure service

Defining configuration is handled in the start_service(). For each instance to be run it has to specify service command and all its parameters. All that info is stored internally by procd. On a single change (compared to the last used configuration) procd restarts a service.

Init script has to specify all possible procd events that may require service reconfiguration. Defining all triggers is done in the service_triggers() using procd_add_*_trigger helpers.

Optionally init script may handle service reconfiguration process on its own. It's useful for services that don't require complete restart to use new configuration. It can be handled by specifying custom reload_service() which prevents start_service() from being called and so stops procd from restarting service.

The purpose of start_service() (see next section to see when it's called) is to define instance(s) with:

  1. Command to execute to start service
  2. Information on what to observe for changes (e.g. files or devices) - optional
  3. Settings that procd should use (e.g. auto respawning, logging stdout, user to use) - optional

The above information is stored by procd as a service instance state. On every relevant system change (e.g. config change), start_service() is called by designed triggers. If it generates any different state (e.g. command will change) than the previous one, procd will detect it and restart the service.

Defining service instance details is handled by setting parameters. Some values are set directly in the start_service() (like command) while some are determined by procd (like file and file hash). There are two helpers for setting parameters:

  1. procd_set_param()
  2. procd_append_param()

The below example lists supported parameters and describes them. For implementation details see the procd.sh.

start_service() {
         procd_open_instance [instance_name]
         procd_set_param command /sbin/your_service_daemon -b -a --foo # service executable that has to run in **foreground**.
         procd_append_param command -bar 42 # append command parameters
 
         # respawn automatically if something died, be careful if you have an alternative process supervisor
         # if process exits sooner than respawn_threshold, it is considered crashed and after 5 retries the service is stopped
         # if process finishes later than respawn_threshold, it is restarted unconditionally, regardless of error code
         # notice that this is literal respawning of the process, not in a respawn-on-failure sense
         procd_set_param respawn ${respawn_threshold:-3600} ${respawn_timeout:-5} ${respawn_retry:-5}
 
         procd_set_param env SOME_VARIABLE=funtimes  # pass environment variables to your process
         procd_set_param limits core="unlimited"  # If you need to set ulimit for your process
         procd_set_param file /var/etc/your_service.conf # /etc/init.d/your_service reload will restart the daemon when these files have changed
         procd_set_param netdev dev # likewise, but for when dev's ifindex changes.
         procd_set_param data name=value ... # likewise, but for when this data changes.
         procd_set_param stdout 1 # forward stdout of the command to logd
         procd_set_param stderr 1 # same for stderr
         procd_set_param user nobody # run service as user nobody
         procd_set_param pidfile /var/run/somefile.pid # write a pid file on instance start and remove it on stop
         procd_set_param term_timeout 60 # wait before sending SIGKILL
         procd_close_instance
}

stop_service() is only needed when you need special things to stop your service. stop_service() is called before procd killed the service.

If you want to add a check after procd has sent the terminate signal (e.g. wait for the process to be really gone), you can define an extra function service_stopped().

WARNING: initscripts will run while building OpenWrt images (when installing packages in what will become a ROM image) in the host system (right now, for actions “enable” and “disable”). They must not fail, or have undesired side-effects in that situation. When being run by the build system, environment variable ${IPKG_INSTROOT} will be set to the working directory being used. On the “target system”, that environment variable will be empty/unset. Refer to “/lib/functions.sh” and also to “/etc/rc.common” in package “base-files” for the nasty details.

While start_service() takes care of setting service instances states and submitting them to the procd (for a potential service restart), it has to be explicitly called to do so. In most cases it should happen on some related change.

That's where service_triggers() comes in handy and allows specifying triggers. Most system important changes result in generating events that service_triggers() can use for triggering various actions. There are multiple procd_add_*_trigger() helpers for that purpose.

Every configurable service has to specify what system changes should result in its reconfiguration. Those events should be defined in the service_triggers() using available helpers. When related procd service event occurs it will result in executing /etc/init.d/<foo> reload.

Example:

service_triggers()
{
        procd_add_reload_trigger "<uci-file-name>" "<second-uci-file>"
        procd_add_reload_interface_trigger <interface>
        procd_add_reload_mount_trigger <path> [<path> ...]
}
Function Arguments Event used Description
procd_add_reload_trigger list of config files config.change Uses /etc/init.d/<foo> reload as the handler
procd_add_reload_interface_trigger interface name interface.* Uses /etc/init.d/<foo> reload as the handler
procd_add_reload_mount_trigger paths to watch for mount.add Uses /etc/init.d/<foo> reload as the handler
procd_add_restart_mount_trigger paths to watch for mount.add Uses /etc/init.d/<foo> restart as the handler

When using uci from command line uci commit doesn't generate config.change event. It requires calling reload_config afterwards.

This does not apply to using uci over rpcd plugin.

Adding interface.* trigger and having /etc/init.d/<foo> reload called won't automatically make procd notice any state change and won't make it restart a service.

Relevant interface has to be made part of service state using the procd_set_param netdev.

Using mount triggers depends on mount notifications emitted by blockd. Hence blockd needs to be installed and the mount need to be configured in /etc/config/fstab.

See also fstab

See use cases of procd_add_interface_trigger, procd_add_reload_trigger, procd_add_reload_mount_trigger in the OpenWrt packages repository.

In older versions of OpenWrt, a system called “ucitrack” attempted to track UCI config files, and the processes that depended on each of them, and would restart them all as needed. This too, is replaced with ubus/procd, and expanded to allow notifying services when network interfaces change.

Sometimes service state may depend on information that doesn't have any events related. This may happen e.g. with service native configuration files that don't get build using UCI config.

In such cases procd should be told to use relevant config file using procd_set_param file /etc/foo.conf. After every config file modification /etc/init.d/foo reload should be called manually.

By default (without reload_service() specified) calling /etc/init.d/<foo> reload results in running service_start() and procd comparing states. In some cases a more complete control over reload action may be needed thought.

If some service requires a restart when reload is called, it can be implemented as follows:

reload_service()
{
        echo "Explicitly restarting service, are you sure you need this?"
        stop
        start
}

j

Some services may support reloading configuration without a complete restart. It's usually implemented using `SIGHUP` or similar signal.

OpenWrt comes with a procd_send_signal() helper that doesn't require passing PID directly. Example:

reload_service() {
         procd_send_signal service_name [instance_name] [signal]
}

The signal argument is SIGHUP by default and must be specified by NAME. You can get available signals using kill -l.

The service_name is the basename of the init.d script, e.g. yourapp for the /etc/init.d/yourapp.

The instance_name allows specifying custom instance name in case it was used like procd_open_instance [instance_name]. If instance_name is unspecified, or '*' then the signal will be delivered to all instances of the service.

Note You can also send signals to named procd services from outside initscripts. Simply load the procd functions and send the signal as before.

#!/bin/sh
. /lib/functions/procd.sh
procd_send_signal service_name [instance_name] [signal]

You can also configure reload by signal with procd_set_param reload_signal service option.

procd can isolate services using various Linux features typically used for (slim-)containers: chroot and namespaces (and limits, seccomp, capabilities as well as setting PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS, see Service Parameters).

Function Arguments Description
procd_add_jail jail name, flags Set up service jail (with features according to flags)
procd_add_jail_mount read-only paths Read-only bind the paths listed to the jail's mount namespace
procd_add_jail_mount_rw read-write paths Bind the paths listed to the jail's mount namespace
Flag Description
log Allow jailed service to log to syslog
ubus Allow jailed service to access ubus
procfs Mount /proc in jail
sysfs Mount /sys in jail
ronly Re-mount jail rootfs read-only
requirejail Do not fall back to run without jail in case jail could not be set up
netns Run jailed process in new network namespace
userns Run jailed process in new user namespace
cgroupsns Run jailed process in new cgroups namespace
console Set up console accessible with ujail-console

See use cases of procd_add_jail.

Set PROCD_DEBUG=1 to see debugging information when starting or stopping a procd init script. Also, INIT_TRACE=1 /etc/init.d/mything $action Where $action is start/stop etc.

The following table contains a listing of the possible values to procd_set_param() and a description of their effects. List values are passed space-separated, e.g. procd_set_param env HOME=/root ENVIRONMENT=production FOO=“bar baz”. String values are implicitely concatenated, so procd_set_param error An error occurred is equivalent to procd_set_param error “An error occurred”.

Parameter Data Type Description
env Key-Value-List Sets a number of environment variables in key=value notation exported to the spawned process.
data Key-Value-List Sets arbitrary user data in key=value notation to the ubus service state. This is mainly used to store additional meta data with spawned services, such as mDNS announcements or firewall rules which may be picked up by other services.
limits Key-Value-List Set ulimit values in key=value notation for the spawned process. The following limit names are recognized by procd: as (RLIMIT_AS), core (RLIMIT_CORE), cpu (RLIMIT_CPU), data (RLIMIT_DATA), fsize (RLIMIT_FSIZE), memlock (RLIMIT_MEMLOCK), nofile (RLIMIT_NOFILE), nproc (RLIMIT_NPROC), rss (RLIMIT_RSS), stack (RLIMIT_STACK), nice (RLIMIT_NICE), rtprio (RLIMIT_RTPRIO), msgqueue (RLIMIT_MSGQUEUE), sigpending (RLIMIT_SIGPENDING) Two numeric values, separated by blank space, are expected for RLIMIT: the first value represents the soft limit and the other the hard limit; e.g.: procd_set_param limits nofile=“10000 20000”; the “unlimited” value can be used in cases where “ulimit -{parameter} unlimited” works, for example for the “core” parameter.
command List Sets the command vector (argv) used to execute the process.
netdev List Passes a list of Linux network device names to procd to be monitored for changes. Upon starting a service, the interface index of each network device name is resolved and stored as part of procd's in-memory service state. When a service reload request is processed and the interface index of any of the associated network devices changed or if the list itself changed, the running service state is invalidated and procd will restart the associated process or deliver a UNIX signal to it, depending on how the service was set up.
file List Passes a list of file names to procd to be monitored for changes. Upon starting a service, the content of each passed file is checksummed and stored as part of procd's in-memory service state. When a service reload request is processed and the checksum of one of the associated files changed, or the list of files itself changed, the running service state is invalidated and procd will restart the associated process or deliver a UNIX signal to it, depending on how the service was set up.
respawn List A series of three consecutive numbers which set the respawn threshold, the respawn timeout and the respawn retry respectively. The timeout specifies the amount of seconds to wait before a service restart attempt, the retry value controls how many restart attempts will be made before a service is considered crashed and the threshold value in seconds controls the time frame in which the restart attempts are counted towards the retry limit. For example a threshold of 300 with a retry value of 10 will cause procd to consider the service to be crashed if the associated UNIX process terminated more than 10 times within a time frame of 5 minutes. No further restart attempts will be made for such crashed services unless an explicit restart is performed. Setting the retry value to 0 will cause procd to try restarting the service indefinitely. The default value for respawn is 3600 5 5.
watch List Passes a list of ubus namespaces to watch - procd will subcribe to each namespace and wait for incoming ubus events which are then forwarded to registered JSON script triggers for evaluation.
error List Passes one or more free formed error strings to procd. The error strings are stored as part of the in-memory service state and are exposed verbatim in ubus for use by other tools. This facility is mainly useful to allow init scripts to signal configuration errors or other transient issues preventing a successful start up. If any error string is passed to procd, no attempt will be made to actually spawn the associated UNIX process of the service but the service instance itself is still registered in procd.
nice Integer Set the scheduling priority of the spawned process. Valid values range from -20 (most favorable) to 19 (least favorable).
term_timeout Integer Specifies the amount of seconds to wait for a clean process exit after delivering the TERM signal. If the process fails to completely exit within the specified time frame, the process is forcibly terminated using an uncatchable KILL signal. The default termination timeout value is 5 seconds. Services with expensive shutdown operations, such as database systems, should set the term_timeout parameter to sufficiently large value.
reload_signal String Instructs procd to handle process reloads by delivering a UNIX signal instead of terminating the running process and spawning it again. This is useful for programs that provide extensive native configuration reload handling which allows for updated configurations to be applied on the fly without the need to restart the process. Note that this parameter only makes sense in conjunction with fixed command lines. When a reload signal is specified, any updated command line will be ignored since the running process is retained and not executed again. Valid values for this parameter are UNIX signal names as listed by kill -l.
pidfile String Instructs procd to write the PID of the spawned process into the specified file path. While procd itself does not use or require PID files to track spawned processes, this option is useful for sitation where knowledge of the PID is required, e.g. for monitoring or control client software.
user String Specifies the name of the user to spawn the process as. procd will look up the given name in /etc/passwd and set the effective uid and primary gid of the spawned processaccordingly. If omitted, the process is spawned as root (uid 0, gid 0)
seccomp String Specifies file path to read seccomp filter rules from, the file should be JSON formatted like the seccomp object of the OCI run-time spec
capabilities String Specifies file path to read capability set, the file should be JSON formatted like the capabilities object of the OCI run-time spec
stdout Boolean If set to 1, instruct procd to relay the spawned process' stdout to the system log. The stdout will be fed line-wise to syslog(3) using the basename of the first command argument as identity, LOG_INFO as priority and LOG_DAEMON as facility.
stderr Boolean If set to 1, instruct procd to relay the spawned process' stderr to the system log. The stderr will be fed line-wise to syslog(3) using the basename of the first command argument as identity, LOG_ERR as priority and LOG_DAEMON as facility.
no_new_privs Boolean Instructs ujail to not allow privilege elevation. Sets the ujail -c parameter when true.
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  • Last modified: 2024/02/10 16:23
  • by systemcrash