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Re: inconsistent init.d arguments



On Nov 17, Bdale Garbee wrote
: I've been really annoyed lately on my laptop with my seeming inability to 
: guess at the options to scripts in /etc/init.d.  Specifically, some of the
: scripts use 'reload', some use 'restart'.  
: 
: The majority that provide a reload or a restart use 'reload'.  I find this
: non-intuitive, since we use 'start' and not 'load' for the normal startup.
: 
: I looked briefly, but didn't find this mentioned in the policy documents I
: have.  What's the right answer?  I'd like to file a set of bug reports to
: achieve consistency, but thought I'd solicit comments here first.  Frankly, 
: I'd like all the scripts to handle either 'reload' or 'restart'.  This 
: shouldn't be a significant burden.

There is a real difference for most init.d scripts/daemons between
reload and restart.  

The semantics of these are usually:

    reload: let the daeemon _reread_ its config files
            or some similar action (esp. don't discard 
            state, cache, ...), most daemons will do this
            even w/o forking.
            This is the behaviour often achieved by sending a HUP
            to the process in question.

    restart: stop and start over.


The latter should be possible with all init.d scripts (ok, almost all
...), the reload is possible with a number of init.d scripts.  And the
daemons that cannot reload should do a restart then.


	Heiko
---------------------------------------------------------------
datom * internet * support ** Heiko Schlittermann & Partner GbR
mailto:is@datom.de http://www.datom.de/is voice:+49-351-8029981
Heiko Schlittermann HS12-RIPE finger:heiko@datom.de -----------


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