[Slackbuilds-users] rc.d scripts

[Alan Hicks]

On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 20:50:07 +0200
"Grigorios Bouzakis" <grbzks at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, is there any policy for packages not to include rc.d scripts?
> I havent checked this thoroughly but for example mpd doesnt have one,
> despite the fact that its supposed to be a Music Player Daemon.
> Or is that up to the maintainer to decide?

IMHO, this is entirely up to the MAINTAINER, unless for some reason one
of the admins strongly feels that the SlackBuild script should
provision an rc script. Sometimes even "daemons" can just simply be
popped into rc.local with statements like:

  if [ -f /etc/foo.conf ]; then foo; fi

rc scripts are generally reserved for more "important" daemons,
typically those that affect network users. In those cases, it helps an
admin who needs to upgrade the daemon (or make configuration changes)
to quickly restart the service. Other software that should generally
have an rc script is anything that writes a pid file and then refuses
to startup if that pid file exists. If the system crashes, the rc
script could check the pid file to see if an actual related process was
running with that pid, and remove the file before starting the service
(or force the daemon to start) if that is not the case. Generally
speaking, they should have them in any event because Slackware could
kill the daemon during rc.0 before it has a chance to clean-up its own
pid file if the admin shuts the box down gracefully.  Naturally this
would have to be called in rc.local_shutdown.

I don't know that we admins have formed an official policy on rc
scripts so the above should count only as my personal opinion and the
best advice I alone can give on it. Naturally, if you do create an rc
script, doinst.sh shouldn't automatically add this script to rc.local
or rc.local_shutdown.

HTH

-- 
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.slackbuilds.org/pipermail/slackbuilds-users/attachments/20081228/a3b7d370/attachment.asc>