[systemd-devel] How to get used to systemd vs init

[Chad]

On 6/23/2015 4:25 PM, Ronny Chevalier wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 1:07 AM, Chad <ccolumbu at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Mr. Chevalier,
>> Thank you for your time and reply.
>>
>> On 6/23/2015 1:30 PM, Ronny Chevalier wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 9:45 PM, Chad <ccolumbu at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I am sure this is the wrong place to send this e-mail, but I could not
>>>> find
>>>> another place to send it.
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> It is the good place :)
>> Great, thanks.
>>
>>>> I want to learn and use systemd, but have run into a few problems on my
>>>> way.
>>>> Please don't see this as an attack on systemd, I want to learn something
>>>> new, but change is hard.
>>>>
>>>> I am an old school kind of sysadmin and I am planning on moving from
>>>> CentOS
>>>> 6 to CentOS 7, but I am having trouble with systemd. I am hoping you know
>>>> some shortcuts/tricks to help me learn the new way.
>>>>
>>>> #####
>>>> 1. I can't spell. With init I don't have to know how to spell things
>>>> because
>>>> I have tab complete. I use tab complete for almost every command I type.
>>>> For
>>>> example:
>>>> /e<tab> gets -> /etc/
>>>> /etc/in<tab>  gets -> /etc/init
>>>> /etc/init.<tab>  gets -> /etc/init.d/
>>>> /etc/init.d/ht<tab gets -> /etc/init.d/httpd
>>>> /etc/init.d/httpd restart
>>>> So I entered 19 characters and got 25 with tab complete.
>>>>
>>>> The new systemd way would be to type (23 total characters, no tab
>>>> complete):
>>>> systemctl restart httpd
>>>> Maybe I could tab complete systemctl, but I don't currently have a CentOS
>>>> 7
>>>> system to test on.
>>>>
>>>> The real issue is that I have to know (in the above example) that it is
>>>> httpd not http.
>>>> With so many systems, distros, and services it is hard to remember every
>>>> service name exactly (and some names are very long). For example ntpd has
>>>> a
>>>> d, but nfs does not.
>>>> Tab completion fixes this issue for me.
>>>>
>>>> How can I use tab completion with systemd?
>>> If you use either bash or zsh, systemd provides shell completion for them.
>>>
>>> You could do something like:
>>>
>>> systemctl start htt<tab>
>>> systemctl st<tab>
>>>
>>> or else, and it will complete it.
>> I use bash. This is a cool trick that systemd has over init.d. I know not
>> all programs can do that shell completion, for example /etc/init.d/httpd
>> res<tab> does not work (I try it all the time out of tab completion habit!).
>>>
>>>> #####
>>>> 2. How to find all possible services:
>>>>
>>>> The init way:
>>>> ls -l /etc/init/d
>>>>
>>>> The systemd way:
>>>> ls -l /lib/systemd/system/*.service /etc/systemd/system/*.service
>>>>
>>>> This seems WAY harder and I have to remember 2 locations instead of 1.
>>> There is:
>>>
>>> systemctl list-unit-files
>>>
>>> It lists all the units installed on your system. In systemd a unit is
>>> a configuration file that can describe a service, a mount point, a
>>> device,... So a service is a subtype of unit, see "man 5 systemd.unit"
>>> for more information.
>>>
>>> So if you want to only display the services, you just have to specify the
>>> type
>>>
>>> systemctl list-unit-files --type=service
>> Ok, so that is a lot more to remember than ls -l /etc/init.d, but I can
>> learn it.
>>>
>>>> #####
>>>> 3. List all services and their start levels:
>>>>
>>> In systemd world, start levels equivalent are the targets (see man 5
>>> systemd.target). A target is a synchronisation point between multiple
>>> units. For example, there is sysinit.target which is the
>>> synchronization point for early boot services. This way a unit can ask
>>> to be started only after a specific target, for example.
>>>
>>>> The init way (all services):
>>>> chkconfig --list
>>>>
>>>> The init way (only active services. I use this a lot):
>>>> chkconfig --list | grep :on
>>>>
>>>> The systemd way (all services):
>>>> systemctl list-unit-files --type=service
>>>>
>>>> The systemd way (only active services, I don't know how to do this).
>>>> systemctl ???
>>>>
>>> With systemctl you can provide a filter according to the current state
>>> of a unit. If you want to list all the active service, you can do:
>>>
>>> systemctl --state=active --type=service list-units
>> Ok, again more to type and remember, but memorization is not out of the
>> question.
>>>
>>>> #####
>>>> 4. What about the many programs that rely on /etc/init.d/<service>
>>>> status/start/stop/restart
>>>> I have many services that are monitored by nagios or cron jobs (like
>>>> logrotate) that rely on /etc/init.d/<service> status/start/stop/restart.
>>>> I don't want to change them because right now they work on every server
>>>> and
>>>> I don't want to have to maintain 2 versions of the code or hunt them all
>>>> down.
>>> There is systemd-sysv-generator which creates wrapper .service for
>>> sysv scripts automatically at boot. But you need to specify additional
>>> headers if you want to use ordering. See man systemd-sysv-generator.
>> That is what I am looking for (systemd-sysv-generator), but does that mean
>> systemd will not use the .service files and the system will go back to
>> running all start-up scripts in order via init.d style S01-S99?
>> I don't really care that much as boot time does not matter (I rarely reboot
>> and always have a secondary server that can take the load. I run all
>> clusters or active/backup.)
> No, systemd-sysv-generator will read init scripts and generates
> equivalent services (a systemd unit). Then systemd will load this
> services like it loads every other units and infer what needs to be
> started first according to the configuration in the units. The
> priority of the S01-S99 is also respected, unless the script used LSB
> headers to specify the ordering.
Oh, wait this is the reverse of what I want/need (systemd-sysv-generator goes from init.d to systemd, I need from 
systemd to init.d).
I have a nagios script that runs something like:
/etc/init.d/httpd status
It then reads the output and makes sure httpd is running, if not it takes action depending on the service.
I use that method for tons of services.
I don't want to have to re-write the modules to use:
systemctl status httpd
If I did that then I will not be able to rsync the scripts/configs around and would have to maintain 2 versions of the code.
I was wondering if there was an easy way to create a /etc/init.d/httpd script that called something like this inside:
#!/bin/bash
systemctl $1 $0
I know it is not that simple ($0 for example is the full path /etc/init.d/httpd not just the httpd), which is why I am 
hoping there is a tool for this.
>
>>>> Is there some trick/3rd party script to create /etc/init.d
>>>> wrappers/scripts
>>>> to make all the services work with the old path?
>>>> Something like:
>>>> ln -s /lib/systemd/system/<service>.service /etc/init.d/<service>
>>>> Or maybe a shell script like:
>>>> service=`basename "$0"`
>>>> systemctl $1 $service
>>>>
>>>> So I would like to move forward with systemd (and will eventually have to
>>>> if
>>>> I want modern/supported OSs), but systemd seems harder to deal with and
>>>> will
>>>> break a lot of my existing scripts/cronjobs/monitors.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thank you all for your work on FOSS, you are making the world a better
>>>> place!!
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> ^C
>>>> Chad Columbus
>>>> 20 years of application development and sysadmin
>>>> Currently maintaining about 30 CentOS 6 servers.
>>>> Have maintained over 1,000 linux servers over the years.
>>>>
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>>