This is a Unix init system developed in Python.

Q:

What's the point of developing an init system using hi-level language that additionally requires VM (an overhead)? Init systems, after all, should be light and responsive pieces of software.

A:

Python in the form of MicroPython was successfully re-implemented to run on microcontrollers – small computers with very limited memory and CPU resources.

Python is a flexible object-oriented language, great for expressing complexity – that Init System must deal with.

Project is developed with MicroPython limitations in mind (simplified modules and language API); therefore, it can be run on both - MicroPython and CPyhon.

Project's testing bench is AlpineLinux, however, porting it to another Linux distribution or unix system should be relatively straightforward.

MicroPython - VM and modules, provide multiple functions making it a good base for building Init System but also more. Aim of this project is to use MicroPython potential as much as possible.

1. In between OpenRC and SystemD – yInit goes beyond the scope of classic init systems like OpenRC and SysVinit – that are designed to handle service start/stop/monitoring while delegating tasks such as loginng, cron to specialized demons. yInit approaches SystemD philosophy; that is to provide also essential services, yInit handles:

   a. Time – ensures OS runs with a correct time.

   b. Network – ensures applications are capable of communication (necessary also for time synchronization).

   c. Periodic tasks – provides cron functionality.

   d. SSD trimming – Ensure partitions located on flash storage are mounted with a TRIM option, and/or periodic trims are enabled.

2. Parallel boot – boot services in parallel (if no dependency bound).

3. Web API – for initialization and management of machines over network.

Implementation of these features into a project makes it to

yInit defines the following targets that are used to classify services by task and also determinate at what boot stage service is to be loaded. Below-defined targets and its scopes, targets are in order of actual boot:

1. init – does initializations of special filesystems: devfs, procfs, sysfs,
2. launch – cheks and mounts root and user filesystems, loads drivers, sets up hardware settings, launches logging capability
3. network – initializes network
4. network.online – brings up network services that require network access; fullfilling this target means that the machine is probably online
5. system – starts system services such as SSH server
6. user – runs user related services: login manager, task scheduler.

• The MicroPython Project repository link.
• Micropython APK BUILD