019_how_to_use_preferred_init_system.md

How to use thin-edge.io with your preferred init system

thin-edge.io works seamlessly with systemd on the CLI commands tedge connect and tedge disconnect. However, not all OS support systemd. You might want to use another init system like OpenRC, BSD, init.d with thin-edge.io. This guide explains how to configure thin-edge.io to use another init system.

How to set a custom init system configuration

Create a file system.toml owned by root:root in /etc/tedge directory.

sudo touch /etc/tedge/system.toml

Open your editor and copy and paste the following toml contents. This is an example how to configure OpenRC as the init system for thin-edge.io. We have example configurations for BSD, OpenRC, and systemd under thin-edge.io/configuration/contrib/system.

[init]
name = "OpenRC"
is_available = ["/sbin/rc-service", "-l"]
restart = ["/sbin/rc-service", "{}", "restart"]
stop =  ["/sbin/rc-service", "{}", "stop"]
enable =  ["/sbin/rc-update", "add", "{}"]
disable =  ["/sbin/rc-update", "delete", "{}"]
is_active = ["/sbin/rc-service", "{}", "status"]

Then, adjust the values with your preferred init system. To get to know the rules of the configuration file, please refer to Init System Configuration File.

After you finish creating your own configuration file, it's good to limit the file permission to read-only.

sudo chmod 444 /etc/tedge/system.toml

Now tedge connect and tedge disconnect will use the init system that you specified!

Default settings

If the custom configuration file /etc/tedge/system.toml is not in place, tedge connect and tedge disconnect will use /bin/systemctl as the init system.

Reference document

• Init System Configuration File