[RFC] config reload mechanism

[bynect]

I wanted to add a way to reload the config files. part of the code is taken from #968.

In respect to #968 I added the ability to pass a list of config files to use to the dbus method. If none are passed it will use the old config list.

I noticed that the cmdline parser ignores multiple -conf options (without any acknowledgment of the fact). So I changed the behavior to accept a list of files.

---

Summary

• Add dbus method ConfigReload
• Refactor cmdline parsing to account for multiple -conf values
• Cleanup wayland output on deinit
• Update tests and documentation
• Add dunstctl reload and completions
• Keep original notification state for reload

[bynect]

@zappolowski it seems like the ci is having a problem with arch

maybe it's https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=276422?

[codecov-commenter]

⚠️ Please install the to ensure uploads and comments are reliably processed by Codecov.

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 41.28440% with 128 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Project coverage is 65.37%. Comparing base (20033b8) to head (703bc5a).
Report is 6 commits behind head on master.

Files	Patch %	Lines
src/rules.c	35.71%	63 Missing ⚠️
src/dunst.c	0.00%	24 Missing ⚠️
src/wayland/wl.c	0.00%	14 Missing ⚠️
src/dbus.c	47.36%	10 Missing ⚠️
src/queues.c	0.00%	9 Missing ⚠️
src/option_parser.c	83.33%	3 Missing ⚠️
src/settings.c	66.66%	3 Missing ⚠️
src/draw.c	0.00%	1 Missing ⚠️
test/icon-lookup.c	0.00%	1 Missing ⚠️

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Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master    #1350      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   66.08%   65.37%   -0.72%     
==========================================
  Files          50       50              
  Lines        8247     8326      +79     
  Branches      958     1000      +42     
==========================================
- Hits         5450     5443       -7     
- Misses       2797     2883      +86     

Flag	Coverage Δ
unittests	65.37% <41.28%> (-0.72%)	⬇️

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[bynect]

mostly done. I'll do some more checks and maybe add a functional test

[fwsmit]

Thanks for picking this up! I never got it to work properly when I tried it. But when the code is structured well, it should not be too hard to implement

[bynect]

Thanks for picking this up! I never got it to work properly when I tried it. But when the code is structured well, it should not be too hard to implement

I made some updates. The only thing I am a bit unsure is the reapply of rules

[bynect]

Basically I added a rule struct inside the notification that is allocated and filled when we try to apply a rule to change a value. Then when we reload we reapply that rule to "revert" the original state.
it should work but I haven't tested much (it is kind of involved)

@fwsmit does this solve the problem you said in the comments?

[bynect]

@zappolowski I made the changes you suggested. Did you try hot reloading and found any problem? I wanted to merge this soon

[bynect]

@fwsmit @zappolowski I finished. Also updated the docs. Can I merge this? wanted to release a version in this month what do you think?

[fwsmit]

Looks good to me!

[bynect]

I'll merge then

[fxzzi]

seems like running dunstctl reload whilst a notification on screen causes dunst to stop working.

[bynect]

seems like running dunstctl reload whilst a notification on screen causes dunst to stop working.

How so? It should just reapply the config to the notification

[Dreuzz]

dunstctl reload /home/dreuzzz/.cache/wal/dunst

Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such method “ConfigReload”
Failed to communicate with dunst, is it running? Or maybe the version is outdated. You can try 'dunstctl debug' as a next debugging step.

[bynect]

dunstctl reload /home/dreuzzz/.cache/wal/dunst

Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such method “ConfigReload” Failed to communicate with dunst, is it running? Or maybe the version is outdated. You can try 'dunstctl debug' as a next debugging step.

this means that the running version of dunst is not updated and doesn't have the reload patch.

[Dreuzz]

dunst -v

Dunst - A customizable and lightweight notification-daemon v1.11.0-76-gc1cc6d1
Compiled on 2024-09-29 with the following options:
X11 support: enabled
Wayland support: enabled
SYSCONFDIR set to: /usr/local/etc/xdg
Compiler flags: -g -std=gnu11 -pedantic -Wall -Wno-overlength-strings -Os -pthread -MMD -MP
Linker flags: -lm -lrt -lgio-2.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lglib-2.0 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lharfbuzz -lcairo -lwayland-client -lwayland-cursor -lX11 -lXinerama -lXext -lXrandr -lXss

[bynect]

dunst -v

Dunst - A customizable and lightweight notification-daemon v1.11.0-76-gc1cc6d1 Compiled on 2024-09-29 with the following options: X11 support: enabled Wayland support: enabled SYSCONFDIR set to: /usr/local/etc/xdg Compiler flags: -g -std=gnu11 -pedantic -Wall -Wno-overlength-strings -Os -pthread -MMD -MP Linker flags: -lm -lrt -lgio-2.0 -lgdk_pixbuf-2.0 -lglib-2.0 -lpangocairo-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lharfbuzz -lcairo -lwayland-client -lwayland-cursor -lX11 -lXinerama -lXext -lXrandr -lXss

you are using master branch right? You have to make sure that the program actually running is this one. sometimes the build systems/package managers start a different binary than the one in path

[B1ack3ye]

On my Arch installation, dunstctl reload is not working:

[b1ack3ye@Black-PC ~]$ dunst -v
Dunst - A customizable and lightweight notification-daemon 1.11.0 (2024-04-15)
[b1ack3ye@Black-PC ~]$ dunstctl reload
dunstctl: unrecognized command 'reload'. Please consult the usage.
[b1ack3ye@Black-PC ~]$ dunstify "Test"
[b1ack3ye@Black-PC ~]$ dunstctl reload
dunstctl: unrecognized command 'reload'. Please consult the usage.

[zappolowski]

@B1ack3ye this feature is not yet released. If you want to it you either have to build it yourself or use dunst-git from AUR.

[fxzzi]

seems like running dunstctl reload whilst a notification on screen causes dunst to stop working.

How so? It should just reapply the config to the notification

yeah, which is what I'm thinking, however afterwards no notifications show up. For now I just pkill dunst and it starts itself up again next time a notification is sent.

[bynect]

seems like running dunstctl reload whilst a notification on screen causes dunst to stop working.

How so? It should just reapply the config to the notification

yeah, which is what I'm thinking, however afterwards no notifications show up. For now I just pkill dunst and it starts itself up again next time a notification is sent.

do you mean when reloading all the notifications are closed? or when new notifications come nothing show up? it would be very helpful to provide a debug log (dunst -verbosity debug)

[fxzzi]

do you mean when reloading all the notifications are closed? or when new notifications come nothing show up?

Both. current notifications close, and no new notifications show up.

it would be very helpful to provide a debug log (dunst -verbosity debug)

sure, here u go. https://paste.rs/xSpVi.txt

in this log, i simply launched dunst with verbosity, triggered my volume notification, and then did a dunstctl reload

[bynect]

do you mean when reloading all the notifications are closed? or when new notifications come nothing show up?

Both. current notifications close, and no new notifications show up.

it would be very helpful to provide a debug log (dunst -verbosity debug)

sure, here u go. https://paste.rs/xSpVi.txt

in this log, i simply launched dunst with verbosity, triggered my volume notification, and then did a dunstctl reload

Are you using wayland right? Since I can only test on xorg maybe this is a wayland only bug. could you try using dunst in Xwayland mode to see if this works there?

[fxzzi]

Are you using wayland right? Since I can only test on xorg maybe this is a wayland only bug. could you try using dunst in Xwayland mode to see if this works there?

yep, I'm running on wayland.

[fxzzi]

Finally had some time to test this (I also forgot about this issue lol)

force_xwayland = true in config does allow reload to work, however xwayland isn't useable, the notification is always misplaced and also its just bad practice.

[bynect]

Finally had some time to test this (I also forgot about this issue lol)

force_xwayland = true in config does allow reload to work, however xwayland isn't useable, the notification is always misplaced and also its just bad practice.

did you try with master? I discovered some nasty mem errors that may be related

[fxzzi]

did you try with master? I discovered some nasty mem errors that may be related

i did indeed see your pr and tested to check if it made any change. sadly it hasn't made any change.

[bynect]

did you try with master? I discovered some nasty mem errors that may be related

i did indeed see your pr and tested to check if it made any change. sadly it hasn't made any change.

I see. this needs more testing but for now I have to release anyway with this bug because of #1411

Since this pr is now closed could you please create an issue with the error description so I can keep track of it? thanks