Re: inconsistent init.d arguments

[Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>]

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.

In my experience, those init.d scripts that provide a reload, are for
programs that are able to reload their configs without stopping and starting
the program. Those that provide a restart, you have to actually kill and
restart the program. This is actually documented in policy 3.4.2:

     Packages can and should place scripts in `/etc/init.d' to start or
     stop services at boot time or during a change of runlevel. These
     scripts should be named `/etc/init.d/<package>', and they should
     accept one argument, saying what to do: `start', meaning to starts the
     service, or `stop', to stop the service. Optionally they can support
     `reload' which causes the configuration to be reloaded, or `restart'
     which causes the daemon to be stopped and started again.

I agree, it would be nice if all scripts were required by policy to support
restart. There is value in keeping the reload, too, becuase there are some
daemon's you just don't want to restart when you can merely reload them.
(Like my squid server that takes half an hour to shut down..)

-- 
see shy jo


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