Finit can be extended to add general functionality in the form of I/O monitors, or hook plugins.
The following sections detail existing plugins and hook points. For more information, see the plugins listed below.
For your convenience a set of optional plugins are available:
-
alsa-utils.so: Restore and save ALSA sound settings on startup/shutdown. Optional plugin.
-
bootmisc.so: Setup necessary files and system directories for, e.g., UTMP (tracks logins at boot). This plugin is central to get a working system and runs at
HOOK_BASEFS_UP
. The/var
,/run
, and/dev
file systems must be writable for this plugin to work.Note: On an embedded system both
/var
and/run
can betmpfs
RAM disks and/dev
is usually adevtmpfs
. This must be defined in the/etc/fstab
file and in the Linux kernel config. -
dbus.so: Setup and start system message bus, D-Bus, at boot. Optional plugin.
-
hotplug.so: Setup and start either udev or mdev hotplug daemon, if available.
-
rtc.so: Restore and save system clock from/to RTC on boot/halt.
-
modules-load.so: Scans /etc/modules-load.d for modules to modprobe.
-
netlink.so: Listens to Linux kernel Netlink events for gateway and interfaces. These events are then sent to the Finit service monitor for services that may want to be SIGHUP'ed on new default route or interfaces going up/down.
-
resolvconf.so: Setup necessary files for
resolvconf
at startup. Optional plugin. -
tty.so: Watches
/dev
, using inotify, for new device nodes (TTY's) to start/stop getty consoles on them on demand. Useful when plugging in a usb2serial converter to login to your embedded device. -
urandom.so: Setup random seed at startup.
-
x11-common.so: Setup necessary files for X-Window. Optional plugin.
Usually you want to hook into the boot process once, simple hook plugins
like bootmisc.so
are great for that purpose. They are called at each
hook point in the boot process, useful to insert some pre-bootstrap
mechanisms, like generating configuration files, restoring HW device
state, etc. Available hook points are:
-
HOOK_ROOTFS_UP
: Whenfinit.conf
has been read and/
has is mounted — very early -
HOOK_BASEFS_UP
: All of/etc/fstab
is mounted, swap is available and default init signals are setup -
HOOK_NETWORK_UP
: System bootstrap, runlevel S, has completed and networking is up (lo
is up and thenetwork
script has run) -
HOOK_SVC_UP
: All services in the active runlevel has been launched -
HOOK_SYSTEM_UP
: All services and everything in/etc/finit.d
has been launched
-
HOOK_SVC_RECONF
: Called when the user has changed something in the/etc/finit.d
directory and issuedSIGHUP
. The hook is called when all modified/removed services have been stopped. When the hook has completed, Finit continues to start all modified and new services. -
HOOK_RUNLEVEL_CHANGE
: Called when the user has issued a runlevel change. The hook is called when services not matching the new runlevel have been been stopped. When the hook has completed, Finit continues to start all services in the new runlevel.
HOOK_SHUTDOWN
: Called at shutdown/reboot, right before all services are sentSIGTERM
Plugins like tty.so
extend finit by acting on events, they are called
I/O plugins and are called from the finit main loop when poll()
detects an event. See the source code for plugins/*.c
for more help
and ideas.