daemontools svscanboot & Ubuntu Server 8.10

If you just installed a brand new Ubuntu 8.10 server and tried to run daemontools the Debian Way (apt-get install daemontools daemontools-run), you, just like me, realized that there is no more /etc/inittab. Since Edgy Eft that someone decided that inittab should be deprecated in favor of a thing called Upstart. So, the best you can do is to remove the daemontools-run package:

# apt-get remove daemontools-run

Create a new file on /etc/event.d/svscanboot with:

# svscanboot
#

start on runlevel 2
start on runlevel 3
start on runlevel 4
start on runlevel 5

stop on runlevel 0                                                              
                                                             
stop on runlevel 1                                                              
                                                             
stop on runlevel 6

respawn
exec /usr/bin/svscanboot

Create /etc/service directory and start the service with:

# mkdir /etc/service ; initctl start svscanboot

That’s it. You should have svscanboot started, together with svscan and readproctitle.