frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

Open in hackernews

Nitro: A tiny but flexible init system and process supervisor

https://git.vuxu.org/nitro/about/
66•todsacerdoti•2h ago

Comments

GuinansEyebrows•47m ago
love to see new init projects. how does it stack up against runit (the last one i really familiarized myself with on void linux)?
kragen•45m ago
She credits runit and daemontools as inspiration, and it looks extremely similar. I hope that at some point she writes a comparison explaining what Nitro does differently from runit and why.
Flux159•47m ago
How does this compare to s6? I recently used it to setup an init system in docker containers & was wondering if nitro would be a good alternative (there's a lot of files I had to setup via s6-overlay that wasn't as intuitive as I would've hoped).
nine_k•35m ago
S6 is way more complex and rich. Nitro or runit would be simpler alternatives; maybe even https://github.com/krallin/tini.
andrewstuart2•43m ago
I'm always torn when I see anything mentioning running an init system in a container. On one hand, I guess it's good that it's designed with that use case in mind. Mainly, though, I've just seen too many overly complicated things attempted (on greenfield even) inside a single container when they should have instead been designed for kubernetes/cloud/whatever-they-run-on directly and more properly decoupled.

It's probably just one of those "people are going to do it anyway" things. But I'm not sure if it's better to "do it better" and risk spreading the problem, or leave people with older solutions that fail harder.

mikepurvis•12m ago
From my experience in the robotics space, a lot of containers start life as "this used to be a bare metal thing and then moved it into a container", and with a lot of RPC going on between processes, there's little benefit in breaking up the processes into separate containers.

Supervisor, runit, systemd, even a tmux session are all popular options for how to run a bunch of stuff in a monolithic "app" container.

bityard•9m ago
Yes, application containers should stick to the Unix philosophy of, "do one thing and do it well." But if the thing in your docker container forks for _any_ reason, you should have a real init on PID 1.
lrvick•42m ago
At Distrust, we wrote a dead simple init system in rust that is used by a few clients in production with security critical enclave use cases.

<500 lines and uses only the rust standard library to make auditing easy.

https://git.distrust.co/public/nit

nine_k•22m ago
Likely neat (33% larger than nit), but the readme only explains how to build it, not its interface or functioning.
axlee•42m ago
I'd recommend changing names, nitro is already a semi-popular server engine for node.js https://nitro.build/
nine_k•38m ago
Any well-known generic word is very likely to already have been used by a bunch of projects, some of them already prominent. By now, the best project name is a pronounceable but unique string, for ease of search engine use. Ironically, "systemd" is a good name in this regard, as are "runit" or even "s6".
lrvick•33m ago
I use tiny init systems regularly in AWS Nitro Enclaves. Having the enclave and init system both named nitro is not ideal.
nine_k•26m ago
Dinit, runit, tini -- all avoid the name clash :)
nine_k•41m ago
I would like a comparison with runit, which is a very minimal but almost full-fledged init system. I see many similarities: control directories, no declarative dependencies, a similar set of scripts, the same approach to logging. The page mentions runit in passing, and even suggests using the chpst utility from it.

One contrasting feature is parametrized services: several similar processes (like agetty) can be controlled by one service directory; I find it neat.

Another difference is the ability to initiate reboot or shutdown as an action of the same binary (nitroctl).

Also, it's a single binary; runit has several.

imiric•22m ago
I've gotten used to runit via Void Linux, and while it does the job of an init system, its UI and documentation leave something to be desired. The way logging is configured in particular was an exercise in frustration the last time I tried to set it up for a service.

I wouldn't mind trying something else that is as simple, but has sane defaults, better documentation, and a more intuitive UI.

nine_k•20m ago
Logging in runit seems simple (I don't remember running into problems), but indeed, the documentation leaves much to be desired. Could be a good thing to contribute to Void Handbook.
Ericson2314•41m ago
If I my plug my friend and colleague's work, https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/unstable/#modular-services has just landed in Nixpkgs.

This will be a game changer for porting to NixOS to new init systems, and even new kernels.

So, it's good time to be experimenting with things like Nitro here!

runako•40m ago
The name & function overlap with AWS Nitro is severe:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/latest/security-desi...

stock_toaster•39m ago
It will be interesting to compare this to dinit[1], which is used by chimera-linux.

Giving the readme a brief scan, it doesn't look like it currently handles service dependencies?

[1]: https://github.com/davmac314/dinit

nine_k•29m ago
Nitro does not declaratively handle service dependencies, you cannot get a neat graph of them in one command.

You can still request other services to start in your setup script, and expect nitro to wait and retry starting your service when the dependent service is running. To get a nice graph, you can write a simple script using grep. OTOH it's easy to forget to require the shutdown of the dependent services when your service goes down, and there's no way to discover it using a nitro utility.

Ask HN: Anyone Else Getting YT Ads from Israeli Government Advertising Agency

1•ivape•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A Simple Browser Game Built with Trickle

https://awjzh9pdmgwr.trickle.host/
1•GraceRaoooo•2m ago•0 comments

RBT unifies math, physics, and computation from absolute nothing

https://twitter.com/grok/status/1958602095940313517
1•dvcoolster•2m ago•1 comments

Show HN: I made a tool that will replace frameworks

https://github.com/hmpl-language/hmpl
1•aanthonymax•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Rethink How You Build Software

https://www.cqrs.com/
1•goloroden•3m ago•0 comments

Alerting Best Practices

https://victoriametrics.com/blog/alerting-best-practices/index.html
1•valyala•6m ago•0 comments

From sea ice to ocean currents, Antarctica is now undergoing abrupt changes

https://theconversation.com/from-sea-ice-to-ocean-currents-antarctica-is-now-undergoing-abrupt-changes-and-well-all-feel-them-262615
2•howard941•7m ago•0 comments

Determinants and Causal Effects: Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31492
2•walterbell•8m ago•0 comments

Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars: A Psychotherapeutic Analysis of Systemic Control

https://gettherapybirmingham.com/silent-weapons-for-quiet-wars-a-psychotherapeutic-analysis-of-systemic-control/
1•huijzer•8m ago•1 comments

Show HN: My First Game Made with My Homemade Engine

https://reprobate.site/
1•delduca•10m ago•0 comments

US president says Intel CEO agreed to give the US a 10% stake

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/22/tech/trump-intel-10-percent-stake
1•drewr•13m ago•0 comments

The Science of Loudness

https://fasterthanli.me/articles/the-science-of-loudness
1•ustad•13m ago•0 comments

Bluesky blocks Mississippi under new age verification law

https://www.theverge.com/internet-censorship/764697/bluesky-blocks-mississippi-age-verification-law
4•ExMachina73•14m ago•1 comments

New genre of video collapses the boundaries between celebrities and audiences

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/style/revenge-of-the-followers.html
1•mykowebhn•14m ago•0 comments

Hollywood's Newest Formula for Success: Rereleasing Old Movies

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/movies/rereleases-black-swan-jaws-casper.html
2•voxadam•16m ago•1 comments

Intel and Trump Reach Historic Agreement to Accelerate American Technology

https://newsroom.intel.com/corporate/intel-and-trump-administration-reach-historic-agreement
3•quantumwannabe•19m ago•0 comments

Surveillance Capitalism: Web Tracking

https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07454
2•bdev12345•20m ago•0 comments

Intel sells US Government 10% stake

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/intel-agrees-to-sell-the-us-a-10-stake-trump-says-hyping-great-deal/
1•datadrivenangel•20m ago•0 comments

UN-backed experts declare famine in and around Gaza City

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/22/ipc-declares-famine-gaza-city
9•NomDePlum•22m ago•0 comments

Trump says Intel agreed to give US a stake in its company

https://apnews.com/article/trump-intel-us-equity-stake-b538526b6698f7ebd31e99effd727693
2•voxadam•23m ago•0 comments

Graphzep -TypeScript implementation of temporal knowledge graph memory system

https://github.com/aexy-io/graphzep
1•bhanu423•24m ago•1 comments

Should I focus on B2C cloud or B2B self hosting?

1•itzzurf•30m ago•0 comments

OrbStack v2.0 – MacOS container IDE with Ghostty, file manager, log viewer

https://docs.orbstack.dev/release-notes
2•phren0logy•31m ago•0 comments

Dramatic slowdown in melting of Arctic sea ice surprises scientists

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/20/slowdown-in-melting-of-arctic-sea-ice-surprises-scientists
1•amichail•34m ago•0 comments

EV drivers set to pay road user charges as record numbers sell in Australia

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/13/ev-drivers-set-to-pay-road-user-charges-as-record-number-of-electric-cars-selling-in-australia
1•PaulHoule•36m ago•0 comments

Lifecycle Management: Taking Control of Your ClickHouse Database Evolution

https://www.fiveonefour.com/blog/Introducing-Lifecycle-Management
1•oatsandsugar•37m ago•0 comments

Twitter: High Value, or Highest Value?

https://grantslatton.com/twitter
2•previnder•37m ago•0 comments

U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/22/intel-goverment-equity-stake.html
57•givemeethekeys•41m ago•41 comments

Show HN: Line of Code Analyzer

https://github.com/Reim-developer/Sephera
1•reimisdev•42m ago•0 comments

Trump Signals Fourth Delay of TikTok Ban

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/business/trump-tiktok-ban-deadline.html
2•mitchbob•43m ago•1 comments