Kraken HPC

What is Uinit?

https://github.com/kraken-hpc/uinit

Uinit is a simple golang init process that is intended to be run from within u-root (but can run elsewhere too, say, as a light-weight container init).

Overview

Uinit is built to be scriptable with a simple YAML-format file. For an example script, see: cmds/uinit/uinit.script.

By default, uinit reads the script at the relative path ./uinit.script and writes tot he log file ./uinit.log. An alternative script can be specified on the commandline: ./uinit <path_to_script>

Uinit maintains a key/value store that allows for storing and recalling variables within the script. Variables can be accessed by placing strings of the format "{{.<key>}}" anywhere in the args section of a task. Technically, anything that can be processed by Go’s text/template package can be placed here.

Uinit reads the script as a sequence of tasks. Each task calls a “module”, and passes “args” to the module. Currently, we have the following modules:

  • echo : Echo something to the log
  • command : Execute a command. This can execute in foreground, background, or call Exec (which terminates uinit). Commands can be executed within a shell or directly.
  • setvar : Sets a variable in the key/value store that can be later referenced.
  • cmdline : Reads a file containing commandline arguments of the style: uinit.<key>=<val> adn sets <key> = <val> in the key/value store. If formated as uinit.key, then val="true" implicitly. This is intended primarily to read variables from /proc/cmdline which is the default file to parse, allowing for uinit configuration by kernel parameters. The prefix, which defaults to uinit can be set to anything.
  • mount : Mount a filesystem.

More modules to come! (maybe?)

For more details on modules, see the example scripts, or look for README.md files in the modules/<module> directory.

Building/using

  1. go get -u github.com/kraken-hpc/uinit/cmds/uinit This will build uinit and place it in $GOPATH/bin.
  2. Write a script (see example *.script files)
  3. Run it, and either name the script ./uinit.script, or pass it as a commandline argument.

Building into u-root

You can build uinit directly into u-root by adding the following commandline options to your u-root build: -uinitcmd /bbin/uinit github.com/kraken-hpc/uinit/cmds/uinit Then make sure that you have a uinit.script in the root of your base cpio.

If you intend to boot something with systemdout of this, you’ll want to:

  1. have uroot.systemd on your kernel commandline
  2. put a built uinit named inito in the root of your base cpio

Related: [ layercake ]

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