[TriLUG] systemd presenter wanted

[Kevin Hunter Kesling]

Hi David,

Thank you for volunteering to talk on systemd.  This is a topic that has 
idly interested me for quite awhile; others too, obviously!  Could and 
would you be prepared to answer questions about systemd vs other init 
systems as well?  Specifically, I understand that systemd supports a 
number of features that at least Upstart, OpenRC, and init-style systems 
do not[1], but I'd like to know more about the reasons for the monolith 
of a design?  For example, I thought I learned "all I needed to know" 
when I read the extremely simple code for a pid 1 ... damn, I'm having 
trouble tracking down where I read it, but it goes something like this 
(pardon any obvious errors; this is from memory):

     int main ( ) {
       int status;

       if ( 1 != getpid() )
         return exit_failure;

       sigprocmask( SIG_BLOCK, ... );
       if ( fork() )
         for (;)
           wait( &status )
       sigprocmask( SIG_UNBLOCK, ... );

       return execve(..."/some/init/executable"...);
     }

The magic of course being between the SIG_BLOCK and SIG_UNBLOCK: if the 
parent/pid 1, the sole job is to reap any zombies; otherwise -- and in 
the Unix spirit of a tool does one thing well -- the 
/some/init/executable takes care of starting any/all helper daemons.

No need to respond to me; this is just a request for at least one aspect 
of understanding in regards to the choices made in systemd.

Thanks!

Kevin

[1] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html

At 1:04pm -0400 Mon, 24 Mar 2014, David Both wrote:
> I can do this May 8.
>
> On 03/24/2014 12:06 PM, Hrivnak, Michael wrote:
>> Several people have asked for a presentation on systemd, since it's
>> been a hot topic lately, and since it seems to be the direction
>> that most distributions are going. It has a lot of great features
>> and impacts most people in the LUG, so I think it would be an
>> engaging and well-attended talk.
>>
>> We (the trilug steering committee) need a volunteer! Could you do a
>> talk on systemd? Do you know someone you could refer us to? We are
>> hoping to do this at the May 8 meeting, but also have an opening
>> for July.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Michael