Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-25 Thread Sven Hartge 
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard  wrote:
> Sven Hartge:

>> systemd happily runs "legacy" LSB init scripts
>>
> ... except when its one-size-fits-all approach does not work, of 
> course.  Example:

> * https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/386846/

> This is the problem with even Mewburn rc scripts (as I can attest from 
> personal experience of writing replacements for an entire Mewburn rc 
> system) let alone with van Smoorenburg rc scripts (which are far messier 
> than Mewburn rc ones).  One size does not fit all.  One really is not 
> going to ever get a backwards-compatibility mechanism that copes with 
> all such scripts in the general case "happily".

The problem here lies in most cases in the init-scripts, which where
subtly broken to begin with.

I myself had written such init-scripts, which worked well enough while
used by SysV-init, but where technically not correct or did things in a
way that worked on my system but would fail (or create a race condition)
on other systems.

After the switch to systemd those scripts failed on numerous ways and I
cursed at first, but upon closer inspection I saw that they where broken
to begin with and the faulty behavior could also happen with SysV-init.
Fixing those scripts, or, where possible, converting them to native
systemd.units was then the correct solution.

Grüße,
Sven.

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-24 Thread Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 

Sven Hartge:


systemd happily runs "legacy" LSB init scripts

... except when its one-size-fits-all approach does not work, of 
course.  Example:


* https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/386846/

This is the problem with even Mewburn rc scripts (as I can attest from 
personal experience of writing replacements for an entire Mewburn rc 
system) let alone with van Smoorenburg rc scripts (which are far messier 
than Mewburn rc ones).  One size does not fit all.  One really is not 
going to ever get a backwards-compatibility mechanism that copes with 
all such scripts in the general case "happily".

Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-24 Thread Jonathan de Boyne Pollard 

Tom Browder:


# systemctl enable postfix # systemctl daemon-reload



Minor note: enable incorporates a daemon-reload.

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-21 Thread Sven Hartge 
Christian Seiler  wrote:

> Now, that doesn't mean that you should still write _new_ init scripts
> for custom services if you're going to use systemd anyway. There it
> will be a good idea to learn how to do that with native systemd
> service units.

Exactly.

I was able to create much simpler and much more resilient systemd units
for my local services running on servers than I was ever able to do with
shell scripts. And I was also able to get rid of external supervisors
(like monit) to restart said services upon errors.

As an added bonus those units now work on Debian, Ubuntu and SLES12,
where before that a mess of different shell scripts were needed.

Grüße,
Sven.

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-21 Thread Christian Seiler 

Am 2017-08-21 11:52, schrieb Tom Browder:

On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 02:36 Sven Hartge  wrote:

Question: Why do you want to manually replace the init-script from
postfix in Jessie with a systemd.unit? What do you want to
accomplish by
doing so (other than creating a possible broken system)?


I thought I needed to be able to create service files since the init.d
system is going away.


Maybe in 20 years or so, but not in the foreseeable future. And
especially not during the lifetime of a Debian release. There
will be no point release or security update for Jessie that will
drop support for init scripts. Same goes for Stretch. So even
_if_ Debian should decide to drop init script support in Debian
10 (Buster) - which won't happen, not even systemd upstream has
dropped init script support yet, and they're much less
conservative than Debian when it comes to these things  - you'd
still be able to use Stretch for 5 years before support runs
out. And as I said: support is not going to go away anytime
soon.

Now, that doesn't mean that you should still write _new_ init
scripts for custom services if you're going to use systemd
anyway. There it will be a good idea to learn how to do that
with native systemd service units.

But I don't think it's a productive use of your time to go
around and start replacing all init scripts that are currently
present on your system by systemd services. Those that are
included with Debian are going to be taken care of by the
maintainers in Debian in subsequent releases. And any old
custom scripts that you still use I'd transition whenever you
need to change something in them anyway.


Postfix seems simple enough that its service file would also be
simple.


Well, other than the fact that postfix isn't simple (as you've
noticed), the main issue here is that Debian 9 comes with Postfix
3, while Debian 8 comes with Postfix 2. Furthermore the Postfix
packaging in Debian 9 has started to make use of advanced systemd
features for their own units, so it's not just a port of a simple
init script, but something rather more complicated. You had the
misfortune of picking one of the worst examples here.

Regards,
Christian

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-21 Thread Sven Hartge 
Tom Browder  wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 02:36 Sven Hartge  wrote:
>> Tom Browder  wrote:
>>> On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 12:30 Sven Hartge  wrote:

>>> So the question I have is how does it all work?  There is no init.d,
>>> but there seems to be some convoluted handling that I haven't
>>> figured out yet.  Surely some expert can write a postfix.service
>>> file that drives postfix commands.

>> Question: Why do you want to manually replace the init-script from
>> postfix in Jessie with a systemd.unit? What do you want to accomplish
>> by doing so (other than creating a possible broken system)?

> I thought I needed to be able to create service files since the init.d
> system is going away.  Postfix seems simple enough that its service
> file would also be simple.  I see I am wrong and I will let sleeping
> dogs lie.

No, you don't need to create service files yourself.

systemd happily runs "legacy" LSB init scripts and will do so for the
foreseable future.

And even if sometime in the far future this feature may get removed, it
is the job of the package maintainers to providde services files for
their packages and not you.

Grüße,
Sven.

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-21 Thread Tom Browder 
On Mon, Aug 21, 2017 at 02:36 Sven Hartge  wrote:

> Tom Browder  wrote:
> > On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 12:30 Sven Hartge  wrote:
>
> > So the question I have is how does it all work?  There is no init.d,
> > but there seems to be some convoluted handling that I haven't figured
> > out yet.  Surely some expert can write a postfix.service file that
> > drives postfix commands.

...

> Question: Why do you want to manually replace the init-script from
> postfix in Jessie with a systemd.unit? What do you want to accomplish by
> doing so (other than creating a possible broken system)?


I thought I needed to be able to create service files since the init.d
system is going away.  Postfix seems simple enough that its service file
would also be simple.  I see I am wrong and I will let sleeping dogs lie.

Thanks, Sven.

-Tom

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-21 Thread Sven Hartge 
Tom Browder  wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 12:30 Sven Hartge  wrote:

>> That unit file does effectivly nothing. It just starts "/bin/true" and
>> exits.
>>
>> What it *not* does is starting postfix in any way.
>>
>> This looks like there should be some other unit files which start the
>> other daemons belonging to postfix which depend on this unit file, so
>> you could easily start and stop everything with one command.
>>
>> Are you sure you only got this one unit file from the postfix developer?

> No, I got it from a package installation of postfix on Debian 9.

> So the question I have is how does it all work?  There is no init.d,
> but there seems to be some convoluted handling that I haven't figured
> out yet.  Surely some expert can write a postfix.service file that
> drives postfix commands.

As I suspected:

postfix contains an instanced service file.

The one you posted is just for convenience, to be able to start and stop
all instances at the same time.

The real "meat" is done via postfix@.service, which is a template. This
is coupled with a generator, "postfix-instance-generator" which creates
new instances on the fly, based on the output of "postmulti -l -a".

I don't know if you could transplant this mechanism from postfix3
(version in Stretch) to postfix2 (version in Jessie).

Question: Why do you want to manually replace the init-script from
postfix in Jessie with a systemd.unit? What do you want to accomplish by
doing so (other than creating a possible broken system)?

Grüße,
Sven.

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Tom Browder 
On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 12:30 Sven Hartge  wrote:

> Tom Browder  wrote:
>
> > The contents of the postfix.service file are;
>
...

> That unit file does effectivly nothing. It just starts "/bin/true" and
> exits.
>
> What it *not* does is starting postfix in any way.
>
> This looks like there should be some other unit files which start the
> other daemons belonging to postfix which depend on this unit file, so
> you could easily start and stop everything with one command.
>
> Are you sure you only got this one unit file from the postfix developer?


No, I got it from a package installation of postfix on Debian 9.

So the question I have is how does it all work?  There is no init.d, but
there seems to be some convoluted handling that I haven't figured out yet.
Surely some expert can write a postfix.service file that drives postfix
commands.

Any clues?

Thanks.

-Tom

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Tom Browder 
On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 12:30 Sven Hartge  wrote:

> Tom Browder  wrote:
>
> > The contents of the postfix.service file are;
>
...

>
> That unit file does effectivly nothing. It just starts "/bin/true" and
> exits.
>
> What it *not* does is starting postfix in any way.

...

> .
> Are you sure you only got this one unit file from the postfix developer?


I thought I did, but I'm still searching for the source.

Back when I get more info.

-Tom

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Sven Hartge 
Tom Browder  wrote:

> The contents of the postfix.service file are;

> [Unit]
> Description=Postfix Mail Transport Agent
> Conflicts=sendmail.service exim4.service
> ConditionPathExists=/etc/postfix/main.cf

> [Service]
> Type=oneshot
> RemainAfterExit=yes
> ExecStart=/bin/true
> ExecReload=/bin/true

> [Install]
> WantedBy=multi-user.target

That unit file does effectivly nothing. It just starts "/bin/true" and
exits.

What it *not* does is starting postfix in any way.

This looks like there should be some other unit files which start the
other daemons belonging to postfix which depend on this unit file, so
you could easily start and stop everything with one command.

Are you sure you only got this one unit file from the postfix developer?

Grüße,
Sven.

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Tom Browder 
On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 11:41 AM, Nicolas George  wrote:
> Le tridi 3 fructidor, an CCXXV, Tom Browder a écrit :
>> So "disabled" is normal?
>
> Indeed. See:
>
> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/15/html/Deployment_Guide/ch-Services_and_Daemons.html#s3-services-configuration-enabling

I do see, this systemctl world is new to me, but I am learning thanks
to your help.

Best,

-Tom

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Nicolas George 
Le tridi 3 fructidor, an CCXXV, Tom Browder a écrit :
> So "disabled" is normal?

Indeed. See:

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/15/html/Deployment_Guide/ch-Services_and_Daemons.html#s3-services-configuration-enabling

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George


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Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Tom Browder 
On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 10:17 AM, Nicolas George  wrote:
> Le tridi 3 fructidor, an CCXXV, Tom Browder a écrit :
>> >   # systemctl start postfix
>> >   # systemctl status postfix
>> >
>> > and got several lines basically saying posfix.service was disabled.
>
>> The exact message is:
>>
>> * postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
>>Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/postfix.service; disabled)
>>Active: active (running) since Fri 2017-08-18 04:51:33 CDT; 2 days ago
>>CGroup: /system.slice/postfix.service
>>|- 1505 /usr/lib/postfix/master
>>|- 9515 pickup -l -t unix -u -c
>>`-19868 qmgr -l -t unix -u
>
> Looks like Postfix is running correctly.
>
> Note that "systemctl start" is transient. If you want to make it start
> automatically at boot, you have to use "systemctl enable".

Okay, I did:

#  mv /etc/init.d/postfix /etc/init.d/postfix.orig
#  cp postfix.service /etc/systemd
#  systemctl enable postfix
#  systemctl daemon-reload
#  systemctl stop postfix
#  systemctl start postfix
#  systemctl status postfix
* postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/postfix.service; enabled)
   Active: active (exited) since Sun 2017-08-20 11:25:02 CDT; 1min 37s ago
  Process: 524 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 524 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   CGroup: /system.slice/postfix.service

And all looks good!

Thanks, Nicolas.

Best regards,

-Tom

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Tom Browder 
On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 10:17 Nicolas George  wrote:

> Le tridi 3 fructidor, an CCXXV, Tom Browder a écrit :
> > >   # systemctl start postfix
> > >   # systemctl status postfix
> > >
> > > and got several lines basically saying posfix.service was disabled.
>
> > The exact message is:
> >
> > * postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
> >Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/postfix.service; disabled)

...

> Looks like Postfix is running correctly.


So "disabled" is normal?

Note that "systemctl start" is transient. If you want to make it start
> automatically at boot, you have to use "systemctl enable".


Thanks, Nicolas.

Best,

-Tom

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Nicolas George 
Le tridi 3 fructidor, an CCXXV, Tom Browder a écrit :
> >   # systemctl start postfix
> >   # systemctl status postfix
> >
> > and got several lines basically saying posfix.service was disabled.

> The exact message is:
> 
> * postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
>Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/postfix.service; disabled)
>Active: active (running) since Fri 2017-08-18 04:51:33 CDT; 2 days ago
>CGroup: /system.slice/postfix.service
>|- 1505 /usr/lib/postfix/master
>|- 9515 pickup -l -t unix -u -c
>`-19868 qmgr -l -t unix -u

Looks like Postfix is running correctly.

Note that "systemctl start" is transient. If you want to make it start
automatically at boot, you have to use "systemctl enable".

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Nicolas George 
Le tridi 3 fructidor, an CCXXV, Tom Browder a écrit :
> I got a postfix.service file from a postfix developer and installed it in
> /etc/systemd/system as the docs mention.
> 
> I then moved the /etc/init.d/postfix file away, reloaded the systemd
> daemon, and did:
> 
>   # systemctl start postfix
>   # systemctl status postfix
> 
> and got several lines basically saying posfix.service was disabled.

Maybe reading these several lines in details rather than stopping at the
"basic" meaning would give more information.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George

Re: Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Tom Browder 
On Sun, Aug 20, 2017 at 9:42 AM, Tom Browder  wrote:
> I got a postfix.service file from a postfix developer and installed it in
> /etc/systemd/system as the docs mention.
>
> I then moved the /etc/init.d/postfix file away, reloaded the systemd daemon,
> and did:
>
>   # systemctl start postfix
>   # systemctl status postfix
>
> and got several lines basically saying posfix.service was disabled.

The exact message is:

* postfix.service - Postfix Mail Transport Agent
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/postfix.service; disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2017-08-18 04:51:33 CDT; 2 days ago
   CGroup: /system.slice/postfix.service
   |- 1505 /usr/lib/postfix/master
   |- 9515 pickup -l -t unix -u -c
   `-19868 qmgr -l -t unix -u

The contents of the postfix.service file are;

[Unit]
Description=Postfix Mail Transport Agent
Conflicts=sendmail.service exim4.service
ConditionPathExists=/etc/postfix/main.cf

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/bin/true
ExecReload=/bin/true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target


Thanks.

-Tom
ju

Systemd: Error when replacing postfix LSB init with postfix.service on Debian 8 (jessie)

2017-08-20 Thread Tom Browder 
I got a postfix.service file from a postfix developer and installed it in
/etc/systemd/system as the docs mention.

I then moved the /etc/init.d/postfix file away, reloaded the systemd
daemon, and did:

  # systemctl start postfix
  # systemctl status postfix

and got several lines basically saying posfix.service was disabled.

I have looked for instructions on replacing init.d scripts with systemd
scripts and found the ones about writing service files, converting inin.d
scripts, placing the new service files, but haven't yet found how to turn
the old lsb system off for one service.

Thanks for any help.

With warmest regards,

-Tom