Packaging openrc services in Debian/Devuan

[Matthias Geiger]

Hi Tom,

Sep 25, 2026 15:11:44 Tom <wirelessduck at gmail.com>:

> Hi,
>
> I'm attempting to package an openrc init script and conf.d for openbao for my personal use.  The /etc/init.d/openbao script and /etc/conf.d/openbao are already developed by Alpine linux[0] so I don't need to be concerned with writing those.
>
> I would like to know if there are any guidelines available for the packaging configuration of these two files.
>

not yet. Mark and myself are working on it, but nothing official yet.

> Can I use dh_installinit for openrc-run init scripts? I'm guessing it would not yet support /etc/conf.d files?
>

No, not really. I started writing a new helper called deb-openrc-helper which should do that; but it is still very much WIP.

> Is openrc supported by update-rc.d and invoke-rc.d? I saw that policy mentions using update-rc.d for enabling autostarting of the daemon.[1]

No, those explicity cater only to SysV init scripts and not "native" openRC ones.

>
> Alternatively without any debhelper utility, is it sufficient to add the files into debian/package.install and call rc-update add/del in postinst/prerm?

Yes, that should do it.

>
> Is there any policy regarding whether a package should start/stop the service upon package install/remove/purge with `rc-service <service> start/stop` if we are not using update-rc.d?
>
> Do the files still go into /etc/init.d/ and /etc/conf.d/? I noticed openrc 0.64 was released upstream recently and wasn't sure if there was any change in preferred file paths for Debian.
>

With 0.64 RC_PATH is now supported. This means services can be started from under /usr to. Since my proposed Debian policy amendment to get proper openRC support would require that (also to not overwrite / conflict existing sysvinit ones), we decided to install the services to /usr/lib/rc/init.d (and conf.d), resp.

So I would advise to not install it for now, since once we ship 0.64 (and codify this in policy), a different path will be needed.



Let me know if you have any more questions.

Help in writing the helper program is much appreciated btw ;)

best,

werdahias

PS: sent from mobile, excuse the formatting/brevity
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