OpenRC/Prefix

This work is a reponse to bug #196294.

The following guideline applies to a Gentoo Prefix on RHEL-5.6 amd64 and on Debian 6.0 amd64, for other setups it should be similar. Feel free to documents corner cases here.

Getting openrc on Prefix

root #emerge --ask sys-apps/openrc

Specify the system to be Prefix:

FILE EPREFIX/etc/rc.conf

rc_sys="prefix"

Tips

Start OpenRC Automatically

As a service manager, OpenRC is more useful when started automatically.

/etc/rc.local

Many distributions provide /etc/rc.local as a site specific place start services.

If you have root access to the host, start OpenRC from /etc/rc.local:

FILE /etc/rc.local

EPREFIX/sbin/openrc # replace EPREFIX with yours

crontab

If you do not have root access to the host, but the host has cron, you can hook OpenRC into crontab on every reboot:

FILE crontab -e

@reboot EPREFIX/sbin/openrc # replace EPREFIX with yours

.profile

If the host does not even have cron, OpenRC can be started from login shell. Taking bash for example:

FILE ${HOME}/.profile

EPREFIX/sbin/openrc # replace EPREFIX with yours

OpenRC does nothing if a runlevel is entered again. Logging in (and entering default runlevel) many times does not have side-effects.

Trouble Shooting

XXX is already starting

user $rc-service ntpd start

 * WARNING: ntpd is already starting

OpenRC needs to enter some runlevel to initiate the runtime status directores in EPREFIX/var/run/openrc to really start anything.

user $openrc

Example: tinc

tinc is a decentralized VPN. A tinc started from Gentoo Prefix can serve as a relay node in the VPN, if tun/tap is not available for normal user.

Emerge tinc, or re-emerge to get its {init,conf}.d files back with our new portage

root #emerge --ask tinc

Prefixify init script

user $EPREFIX=$(portageq envvar EPREFIX)

user $sed -i -r -e "s,(\W)/(etc|bin|sbin|usr|var),\1${EPREFIX}/\2,g" ${EPREFIX}/etc/init.d/tincd

Fire up tincd from OpenRC

Make necessary changes in ${EPREFIX}/etc/conf.d/tinc.networks and ${EPREFIX}/etc/tinc according to your specific setup.

Add tincd into default runlevel:

user $rc-update add tincd default

Finally we are done with:

user $openrc

 * Starting tinc VPN networks ...
 * Starting tinc network manifold ... [ ok ]
 * Starting local                     [ ok ]

Example: nginx

nginx is a small, robust and high-performance web server.

Emerge nginx, or re-emerge to get its initd and confd files back with our new portage:

root #emerge --ask nginx

Prefixify init script

user $EPREFIX=$(portageq envvar EPREFIX)

user $sed -i -r -e "s,(\W)/(etc|bin|sbin|usr|var),\1${EPREFIX}/\2,g" ${EPREFIX}/etc/init.d/nginx

Prefixify nginx.conf

user $EPREFIX=$(portageq envvar EPREFIX)

user $sed -i -r -e "s,(\W)/(etc|bin|sbin|usr|var),\1${EPREFIX}/\2,g" ${EPREFIX}/etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Normal privilege

Remove "user nginx nginx;" from the first line of ${EPREFIX}/etc/nginx/nginx.conf.

Listening on port 80 requires root privileges. Change it to 8008:

FILE ${EPREFIX}/etc/nginx/nginx.conflisten on 8008

...
http {
    ...
    server {
        ...
        listen [::]:8008;
        ...
    }
    ...
}

Add nginx to default runlevel and fire up

user $rc-update add nginx default

user $openrc

 * Checking nginx' configuration ... [ ok ]
 * Starting nginx ...                [ ok ]

root #ss -tlpn | grep nginx

LISTEN 0      0                  *:8008             *:*    users:(("nginx",pid=19509,fd=7),("nginx",pid=19508,fd=7))

See also

• Gentoo OpenRC project page