Need help with service-config-manager and socket activated services

[Joseph Reynolds]

On 4/7/21 6:04 PM, Joseph Reynolds wrote:
> We are adding a new function to allow the BMC admin to disable the 
> dropbear SSH server [issue 1763][].  This consists of a D-Bus 
> interface controlled by [service-config-manager][] and an enhanced 
> Redfish REST API.

Richard and AppaRao,

We are enhancing service-config-manager so it can control the dropbear 
SSH server.  See [gerrit review 42072][].  The problem with this 
patchset are:
- It always reports dropbear as disabled.
- When we enable dropbear via this service, it reports dropbear as 
enabled for a few seconds, then it reports dropbear as disabled.

I believe the underlying issue is that dropbear is socket activated 
service.  Does service-config-manager understand how to control socket 
activated services like dropbear server?
- If so, can you help us debug what is going wrong?
- If not, can you point us to what code needs to be enhanced to make 
this work?

Thanks,
- Joseph

>
> We need help to understand how to enhance service-config-manager to 
> work with socket activated services such as dropbear.  For example, to 
> disable dropbear, is the correct action to perform something like this?:
>   systemctl stop dropbear.socket
>   systemctl disable dropbear.socket
>
> - Joseph
>
> [issue 1763]: https://github.com/ibm-openbmc/dev/issues/1763
> [service-config-manager]: 
> https://github.com/openbmc/service-config-manager
[gerrit review 42072]: 
https://gerrit.openbmc-project.xyz/c/openbmc/service-config-manager/+/42072