GNU Pies NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2019-06-03 See the end of file for copying conditions. Please send Pies bug reports to or Version 1.3.91 (git) * New option --no-init The --no-init option instructs pies not to switch to init mode if its PID is 1. Use this option if you run pies as a process manager in a docker container. * New component modes: startup and shutdown Startup components are run right after pies startup. Any other components start running only after last startup component has terminated. Shutdown components are executed at program shutdown, after all other components have been terminated. Any number of startup or shutdwon components can be defined in the configuration file. Such multiple components are run simultaneously, unless required otherwise by their "prerequisites" and "dependents" statements. * New component flag: shell The 'shell' flag instructs pies to run the component via "/bin/sh -c $command". Use it if the command should undergo variable expansion, contains redirections, pipes, etc. E.g. component X { flags shell; command "if [ -n "$X" ]; then foo; else bar; fi" } * Improved cyclic dependency diagnostics * New 'env' statement The 'env' statement has been re-implemented as a compound statement. It can contain the following sub-statements: ** clear yes Clears the environment ** keep NAME Keeps the variable NAME when clearing the environment. Implies "clear yes". NAME can be a globbing pattern, in which case all variables matching the pattern are retained. ** set "NAME=VALUE" Sets the environment variable for the component. VALUE is subject to variable expansion. ** unset NAME Unsets the variable. NAME can be a globbing pattern, in which case all variables matching the pattern are unset. Example: env { clear yes keep PATH keep MANPATH keep "LC_*" set "MANPATH=$MANPATH${MANPATH:+:}/usr/local/man" } * Legacy 'env' statement. Support for the old one-line syntax of "env" is retained for backward compatibility. Previous versions applied unnecessary word splitting if given a single argument. This is now fixed, so that e.g. the following statement is processed correctly and defines a single variable X to have the value "foo bar": env "X=foo bar" * New environment variable available in commands started from return-code Programs started via "exec" statement in the "return-code" block obtain the PID of the master pies process in environment variable PIES_MASTER_PID. Version 1.3, 2016-10-01 * SysV-style Init GNU Pies can now be used as init process daemon - the first process started during booting. The configuration can be supplied both as a traditional /etc/inittab file or as a native GNU Pies configuration file. The control interface provides extensive monitoring and management capabilities. * Control interface The running GNU Pies instance can be queried and reconfigured on the fly via a TCP socket (either UNIX or INET). Special utility, piesctl, is included, which provides command line interface for inspecting the state of components, reloading configuration (including addition or removal of configuration files on the fly), stopping and restarting components, etc. * Changes in configuration Two new flags are provided: - siggroup This flag instructs pies to send termination signal to the process group of the process being stopped. - nullinput Do not close standard input. Redirect it from /dev/null instead. Use this option with commands that require their standard input to be open (e.g. pppd nodetach). ** String concatenation The adjacent string concatenation feature proved to create more problems than solutions (in particular, with the "env" statement) and was removed. Version 1.2, 2009-12-11 * First release as a GNU package. * Full inetd support The program supports all types of services (including built-in ones) and all types of protocols offered by the traditional `inetd' utility. The `inetd.conf' configuration file format is supported. The `inetd' configuration file may be supplied either from the command line (see below), or via the `include-inetd' configuration statement. * Inetd replacement A replacement script for inetd(8) is provided. It is fully compatible with the traditional inetd command line, but offers the flexibility and new features of pies. * Configuration file handling Several configuration files, eventually of different types, can be specified in the command line. New command line option `--syntax' declares the syntax of configuration files that follow it, e.g.: pies --config-file /etc/pies.conf \ --syntax=inetd --config-file /etc/inetd.conf \ --syntax=meta1 --config-file /etc/meta1/meta1.conf * New keywords. Component keywords: flags, service, socket-type, max-instances, max-rate, qotd-file. Global keywords: state-directory, include-inetd. * New option --instance The `--instance' option allows you to run several instances of pies, each of them using separate configuration and state files. * New option --rate For compatibility with inetd. * Improved status output. Version 1.1, 2009-10-20 * Account for possible system clock inaccuracies. * Improve documentation. * Add Polish and Ukrainian translations. Version 1.0, 2009-10-17 First stand-alone release. Previous versions were released as part of Mailfromd (http://mailfromd.software.gnu.org.ua). ========================================================================= Copyright information: Copyright (C) 2009-2019 Sergey Poznyakoff Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved, thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn. Permission is granted to distribute modified versions of this document, or of portions of it, under the above conditions, provided also that they carry prominent notices stating who last changed them. Local variables: mode: outline paragraph-separate: "[ ]*$" eval: (add-hook 'write-file-hooks 'time-stamp) time-stamp-start: "changes. " time-stamp-format: "%:y-%02m-%02d" time-stamp-end: "\n" end: