Re: running a shell script in the init file

Kevin Williams wrote:
> 
> Thanks for all the responses--they were very helpful.  Since I'm
> installing this for a client who has very little linux experience, but
> does have funds to have purchased a license agreement, I have decided to
> stick with the "Redhat" way.  More likely to get support if anything
> happens in the future.
> 
> With that being said, I was able to successfully create the daemons I
> needed.  Having done this I did come up with a couple of questions where
> I was hoping to get clarification:
> 
> 1.  Within the init scripts, after all the setup, the actual start
> command (where the executable is) was always prefaced with the word
> "daemon", like: daemon $INIT_PROG $INIT_OPTIONS  Does anyone know what
> the word daemon is for?
> 

daemon is a function defined in /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions.  It starts 
the program including checking for pid files and logging.

> 2.  In all other scripts, the command is called without the & at the end
> of the line.  Mine runs a perl script and a bash shell.  The bash shell
> I was forced to put the & in so that the startup process didn't hang. 
> Do most of the executables do this by default, and are therefore not
> needed?  The perl script had a -detach option, so the & wasn't needed. 
> Is that how most daemon programs run, or is there some other way that
> I'm missing that forces the application to run in the background (not
> hang when calling /etc/init.d/[app] start)?
> 

Most daemon programs handle putting themselves in the background and 
detaching from the terminal.  If your script has a -detach option, you 
probably should use that if it works.  Otherwise, using "&" for the 
background should work.  You will have to worry about making sure the 
stdout and stderr are redirected.  The daemon function does handle this.

  - Ian

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