Software
skarnet.org

s6-rc

What is it ?

s6-rc is a service manager for s6-based systems, i.e. a suite of programs that can start and stop services, both long-running daemons and one-time initialization scripts, in the proper order according to a dependency tree. It ensures that long-running daemons are supervised by the s6 infrastructure, and that one-time scripts are also run in a controlled environment.

• Why such a program ?
• A high-level overview of s6-rc
• FAQ for s6-rc

Installation

Requirements

• A POSIX-compliant system with a standard C development environment
• GNU make, version 3.81 or later
• skalibs version 2.14.4.0 or later. It's a build-time requirement. It's also a run-time requirement if you link against the shared version of the skalibs library.
• execline version 2.9.7.0 or later. It's a build-time and run-time requirement.
• s6 version 2.13.2.0 or later. It's a build-time and run-time requirement.

Licensing

s6-rc is free software. It is available under the ISC license.

Download

• The current released version of s6-rc is 0.5.6.0. You can access its checksum here.
• Alternatively, you can checkout a copy of the s6-rc git repository:

   git clone git://git.skarnet.org/s6-rc 

• There's also a GitHub mirror of the s6-rc git repository.

Compilation

• See the enclosed INSTALL file for installation details.

Upgrade notes

• This page lists the differences to be aware of between the previous versions of s6-rc and the current one.

Reference

Commands

Offline tools: creating and managing a compiled service database

• The s6-rc-compile program
• The s6-rc-db program
• The s6-rc-bundle program

Online tools: managing your live services

• The s6-rc-init program
• The s6-rc program
• The s6-rc-update program

Upgrading from earlier s6-rc database formats

• The s6-rc-format-upgrade program

Programs used internally

• The s6-rc-dryrun internal program
• The s6-rc-oneshot-run internal program
• The s6-rc-fdholder-filler internal program

Related resources

Version 1.0.0.0 of s6-rc was in development for some time, but it was too ambitious a project and had to be scaled back. s6-rc is now focused on incremental improvement.

The s6-frontend project is a higher-level interface to the s6 ecosystem, and s6-rc in particular. It is currently in development and should land in a major Linux distribution in 2025 or 2026.

Discussion

• s6-rc is discussed on the skaware mailing-list.

Similar work

• anopa is another service manager for s6, with a similar design (but no compilation phase).
• nosh is a complete init system and service manager for Unix.