I’ve been making good progress on my current overarching project, Structuring the System Layer with Dataspaces.

I’ve written a few scripts to create an initrd from Alpine Linux packages (based on my experience working for the FRμIT testbed project), with a custom init script that installs the system onto a (virtual) hard disk and configures it for booting.

The second-stage init is just syndicate-server, configured to start system services that self-assemble into the correct startup ordering as a result of monitoring their dependencies using assertions in the dataspace.

I’ve also been studying the various pieces of existing system layers (like s6, systemd, SysV init, inetd and so on) to try to map the design landscape a bit.

In addition, I’ve explored use of PF_NETLINK sockets to subscribe to kernel-originated device plug-and-play events (like udev does). It seems straightforward.

The things I’ve written as a result of all this aren’t quite ready for public viewing yet. I’ll post again when the repository is available.