[talk] NYC*BUG Wednesday: BSD init(8) and rc(8)

[George Rosamond]

March 2, Wednesday
BSD init(8) and rc(8): Room for Improvement?, Raul Cuza
18:45, Stone Creek Bar & Lounge: 140 E 27th St

Abstract

The current init(1) and rc(1) startup services have served BSD well for
many years. But are they long in the tooth?

There are a host of problems that it does not solve. This begs the
question of whether it is time to replace it with something better. More
importantly what could be better? This talk will look at the existing
initialization and coordination system that currently serves the major
BSD projects, what problems they solve and what problems they do not
solve. We will review alternatives and how their approaches will impact
how we work. Some of the alternatives that will be discussed include
relaunchd, nosh, and systemd.

Speaker Bio

Raul Cuza makes pretenses to being a modern hip SysAdmin, but can't
forget late nights installing Sun-3s to pull it off successfully.

He has spent most of his career in K-12 schools reminding Cupertino-
designed hardware that there is BSD somewhere under all the glitz. Many
years making OpenBSD firewalls to replace web ads with student artwork
and keeping OS X machines useful tools for learning has taught him that
the real impact of the computer age does not happen in the server room
but couldn't happen without it either.

He is currently challenged with getting meaningful work done on other
people's hardware residing in other people's server rooms distributed
around the globe. He has permission to use them.