runit - upgrading from previous versions

2.1.x to 2.2.0

The chpst program learned a new option -C to run a program in a sepcific working directory, and the runit program now respects the magic file /etc/runit/nosync to make sync (commit filesystem caches to disk) on shutdown and reboot optional.

2.0.0 to 2.1.2

The chpst program learned a new option -b to run a program with a different name as the 0th argument.

1.9.0 to 2.0.0

No further action from you is required.

1.8.0 to 1.9.0

The default directory for services is now /service/, and no longer /var/service/. To be consistent with the new default location, create a symlink when upgrading

 # ln -s /var/service /

When installing runit on a system that should comply with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS), neither /service/ nor /var/service/ should be chosen, but /etc/service/. It is recommended to create a compatibility symlink /service pointing to /etc/service in this case.

1.7.x to 1.8.0

The runit program, the process no 1, has been fixed to reap dead processes that re-parented to process no 1 (zombies) more thoroughly. Instructions on how to run runit with upstart as init scheme have been added, svlogd has been changed to use a new source port for each log message sent through udp, and this release includes a build fix for AIX.

1.6.0 to 1.7.x

With this version the runsv program starts to run the ./finish script with two arguments, the exit code and the exit status of the just finished ./run script. The timestamp svlogd optionally prepends to log messages can be specified to be in iso 8601 alike format. See the man pages for details.

1.5.x to 1.6.0

svlogd has been changed to prepend the optional timestamp also to log messages sent to the network through UDP, just as it does for log messages written to a log directory or standard error.

1.4.0 or 1.4.1 to 1.5.x

The svlogd program supports a new configuration option p to optionally prefix each line written to logs, standard error, or through UDP with a string, and no longer strips empty lines from the logs.

1.3.x to 1.4.0 or 1.4.1

With this version the runsvctrl, runsvstat, svwaitdown, and svwaitup programs no longer are being installed, the functionality of these programs has been incorporated into the sv program. The documentation now suggest to put service directories by default into the /etc/sv/ directory, and a list of frequently asked questions with answers has been added. The chpst program understands a new option -d to limit memory of the data segment per process.

1.2.x to 1.3.x

This release introduces a first test version of the sv program, which can be used to control the state and query the status of services monitored by runsv. Optionally it can be sym-linked into /etc/init.d/ to provide an interface to LSB init script actions for services controlled by runit. See the man page for details. Thanks to Lars Uffmann, instructions on how to run runit under launchd on MacOSX 10.4 have been added.

1.1.0 to 1.2.x

With this version the runsv program makes controlling the service through commands normally sent by runsvctrl configurable; arbitrary actions through external programs can optionally be specified, and signalling of the service disabled if desired. See the man page for details.

runsv now reports the seconds since ./run has been started when running the ./finish script, instead of the seconds since ./finish has been started. It no longer reports immediately failing ./run scripts as ``running'' for up to one second, but as ``down, normally up, want up''.

1.0.x to 1.1.0

The svlogd program now interprets the ``e'' and ``E'' configuration options so that they can be combined to select or deselect log messages to be written to standard error, similar to the ``+'' and ``-'' options for the rotated log. It also provides the new ``t'' and ``N'' configuration options, see the man page for details. The chpst program supports adjusting the nice level through the new -n command line option.

Starting with this version, /etc/runit/2 by default runs the runsvdir program with the -P option. To adapt edit /etc/runit/2 and change the invocation of runsvdir accordingly, see here.

Gerrit Pape <pape@smarden.org>