GNU Shepherd 1.0.6 released

Ludovic Courtès <[email protected]> Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:25:40 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.org.fsf.announce
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
We are glad to announce version 1.0.6 of the Shepherd, the next
bug-fix release in the 1.0.x series.

Check out the web site to learn more about the Shepherd 1.0.x series:

  https://gnu.org/software/shepherd/news/2024/12/the-shepherd-1.0.0-released/

• About

  The Shepherd is a service manager written in Guile that looks after
  the herd of daemons running on the system.  It can be used as an
  “init” system (PID 1) and also by unprivileged users to manage
  per-user daemons—e.g., gpg-agent, tor, privoxy.  It supports several
  daemon startup mechanisms, including inetd, systemd-style socket
  activation, and timers.  The Shepherd is configured in Guile Scheme
  and can be extended in the same language.  It builds on a simple
  memory-safe and callback-free programming model.

  The Shepherd is developed jointly with the Guix project; it is used as
  the init system of Guix System and service manager of Guix Home.

  https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/

• Download

  Here are the compressed sources and a GPG detached signature:
    https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/shepherd/shepherd-1.0.6.tar.gz
    https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/shepherd/shepherd-1.0.6.tar.gz.sig

  Here are the SHA1 and SHA256 checksums:

    f5296ae2b896c619c3856fcecadcf74ad8d9b1de  shepherd-1.0.6.tar.gz
    fc74dfda499a695e650fc5839d39ad538e2e323949b8904afcfaffa34171be33  shepherd-1.0.6.tar.gz

  Authenticate the code by downloading the corresponding .sig file:

    gpg --verify shepherd-1.0.6.tar.gz.sig

  The signing key can be retrieved with:

    gpg --recv-keys 3CE464558A84FDC69DB40CFB090B11993D9AEBB5

  As a last resort to find the key, you can try the official GNU
  keyring:

    wget -q https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-keyring.gpg
    gpg --keyring gnu-keyring.gpg --verify shepherd-1.0.6.tar.gz.sig

  It is bit-for-bit reproducible from a checkout of the ‘v1.0.6’ tag of
  the Git repository.


• Changes since version 1.0.5

  ** ‘shepherd’ reacts to deletion of its listening socket
     (<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/76998>)

  If the listening socket of ‘shepherd’ is deleted, it becomes impossible to
  control it.  Thus, upon deletion, ‘shepherd’ tries to reopen it (when running
  as PID 1) or stops itself (when running as an unprivileged user).

  The latter behavior is useful when the listening socket is under /run/user/UID
  (the default) since that directory is usually deleted as soon as the user
  session terminates.

  ** ‘shepherd’ and ‘herd’ honor the ‘SHEPHERD_SOCKET’ environment variable
     (<https://codeberg.org/shepherd/shepherd/issues/11>)

  Both ‘shepherd’ and ‘herd’ now honor the new ‘SHEPHERD_SOCKET’ environment
  variable, which specifies the socket file to listen to or to connect to when
  the ‘--socket’ option is omitted.  The ‘reboot’ and ‘halt’ commands do not
  honor it as this usually makes little sense.

  ** ‘herd status’ shows clearer information for timers
     (<https://codeberg.org/shepherd/shepherd/issues/6>)

  Previously, the output of ‘herd status TIMER’ would start with “It is running
  since…”, as is the case with other services.  This message could be
  misinterpreted as meaning that the timer’s action is currently running, when
  it in fact referred to the fact that the timer was “active”, possibly just
  awaiting the next alarm.

  ** New Fish completion

  This version comes with completion of the ‘herd’ command for the Fish shell.

  ** Translations

  This version is fully translated in German, Romanian, Swedish, and Ukrainian;
  it is partially translated in several other languages.  Check out
  https://translationproject.org/domain/shepherd.html to help translate it into
  your language!



Please report bugs to <https://codeberg.org/shepherd/shepherd/issues>.
Join [email protected] for discussions.

Many thanks to everyone who reported bugs or contributed patches!

Ludovic, on behalf of the Shepherd herd.
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