[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#345719: Please remove pointless runlevel restriction on telinit u

[Thomas Hood]

Miquel: Can you remember why "telinit u" was implemented with a runlevel restriction?
// Thomas

Dana How wrote:
> Package: sysvinit
> Version: 2.86.ds1-6
> 
> Around Feb 1998, the "telinit u" feature was added to the sysvinit package.
> This allowed a running /sbin/init to be updated (re-executed after
> re-installing).
> 
> There are other situations where it would be useful to re-exec /sbin/init .
> Midway through a boot from CDROM or other ro media,
> or during a shutdown when the entire system is running from removable media,
> such as CDROM, USB key, or CF, and we need to continue running reliably
> for a short period after the media is removed.
> 
> Anyway, "telinit u" could be used in each of these cases,
> except it has a check which causes it to do nothing when in runlevels 0 and 6.
> I looked around in the source code and the original change logs,
> and could find no reason for this restriction,
> other than it was consistent with the original purpose of including "telinit u".
> 
> I have attached a trivial patch which permits re-exec in runlevels 0 and 6.
> This has been tested, on both harddrive and CDROM-based instances.
> 
> Thanks,
> --
> Dana L. How  danahow at gmail.com  +1 650 804 5991 cell