On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 09:13:22 +0000 Mark Hindley wrote:
> Control: tags -1 upstream
>
> Andrew,
>
> Thanks for this.
>
> On Tue, Mar 17, 2026 at 11:48:24PM +0000, Andrew Bower wrote:
> > When booting with sysvinit, the following message is invariably
displayed:
> >
> > INIT: No inittab.d directory found
> >
> > This is a little excessive for a default installation as the visual
footprint
> > from init should be minimal. It does not seem to be valid as an
error or a
> > warning.
>
> I agree. I think this could/should be silently ignored (upstream).
I had mixed feelings about this. It's valid information, but it is
checking for an optional feature. I have decided to remove the warning
about inittab.d not being found, but have left in status messages about
reading .tab files inside that directory.
>
> > This can be worked around by adding a directory in
debian.sysvinit-core.dirs.
>
> Really that adds unnecessary cruft.
>
> > However, this then leads us to a documentation issue: you have to
read the
> > source code to realise that only files ending ".tab" will be read.
Therefore I
> > suggest the patch below [4] would be a better resolution in the
debian package,
> > including a README to explain this point.
> >
> > But we are not out of the woods. The change [1] that introduced
this feature
> > did not document it. So I suggest that the upstream documents the
directory and
> > its constraints in the man pages.
>
> Certainly that would be worth documenting, again upstream.
>
Agreed. I've added a note about this in our inittab manual page.
> > Then if you do use the feature, you get excessively verbose output
due to [2]:
> >
> > printf("Got line: %s\n", buf);
> >
> > I think upstream should remove that.
>
> That looks like debug leftovers to me.
>
Agreed. I'm removing this line upstream.
I think that covers everything. These fixes and the updated
documentation will be in SysV init version 3.16
- Jesse
