Bug#41554: dpkg: start-stop-daemon --pidfile behaviour doesn't match documentation

[korn@eik.bme.hu]

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.4.1.3
Severity: normal

Hi,

I experimented a bit with start-stop-daemon and found that the passage on
the --pidfile switch in the manpage doesn't accurately describe the actual
behaviour of the program. It says in the manpage

       With --start , start-stop-daemon checks for the  existence
       of  a  specified  process.   If  such  a  process  exists,
       start-stop-daemon does nothing, and exits with error  sta­
       tus  1  (0  if  --oknodo is specified).  If such a process
       does not exist, it starts an instance,  using  either  the
       executable  specified  by  --exec  , (or, if specified, by
       --startas ).  Any arguments given after -- on the  command
       line are passed unmodified to the program being started.

...

       -p|--pidfile pid-file
              Check  for  processes whose process-id is specified
              in pid-file.

This would imply that start-stop-daemon reads the pidfile, and if it finds a
process with the PID from the pidfile running, it doesn't start a new
instance; if not, it does. However, all start-stop-daemon is really
concerned about is the _existence_ of the pidfile. Allow me to demonstrate:

[guy@utopia ~]$ start-stop-daemon -t --start --pidfile $SSH2_AGENT_PIDFILE --startas /usr/bin/ssh-agent2
Would start /usr/bin/ssh-agent2 .
[guy@utopia ~]$ start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile $SSH2_AGENT_PIDFILE --startas /usr/bin/ssh-agent2
SSH2_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/ssh-guy/ssh2-6134-agent; export SSH2_AUTH_SOCK;
SSH2_AGENT_PID=6135; export SSH2_AGENT_PID;
echo Agent pid 6135;
[guy@utopia ~]$ echo 6135 >$SSH2_AGENT_PIDFILE
[guy@utopia ~]$ start-stop-daemon -t --start --pidfile $SSH2_AGENT_PIDFILE --startas /usr/bin/ssh-agent2
(null) already running.
[guy@utopia ~]$ kill 6135
[guy@utopia ~]$ pidof ssh-agent2

[guy@utopia ~]$ start-stop-daemon -t --start --pidfile $SSH2_AGENT_PIDFILE --startas /usr/bin/ssh-agent2
(null) already running.
[guy@utopia ~]$ rm $SSH2_AGENT_PIDFILE
[guy@utopia ~]$ start-stop-daemon -t --start --pidfile $SSH2_AGENT_PIDFILE --startas /usr/bin/ssh-agent2
Would start /usr/bin/ssh-agent2 .

OR, instead of the rm command above:

[guy@utopia ~]$ start-stop-daemon -t --start --pidfile $SSH2_AGENT_PIDFILE --exec /usr/bin/ssh-agent2 --startas /usr/bin/ssh-agent2
Would start /usr/bin/ssh-agent2 .

So, specifying --exec along with --pidfile works. This is also evident after
a look at the output of strace.

Imho either the documentation should state more clearly that --pidfile only
makes sense if used along with --exec, or the program should be modified so
that it behaves in the way implied by the documentation. Personally, I would
prefer the latter.

Regards,

-- 
  Andrew Korn (Korn Andras) <korn@eik.bme.hu>  http://goliat.eik.bme.hu/~korn
    Finger korn@goliat.eik.bme.hu for pgp key.  Homepage is obsolete. QOTD:
           Can't learn to do it well? Learn to enjoy doing it badly!

-- System Information
Debian Release: potato
Kernel Version: Linux utopia 2.2.10-ac10 #57 Wed Jul 14 14:08:37 CEST 1999 i586 unknown

Versions of the packages dpkg depends on:
ii  libc6           2.1.1-12       GNU C Library: Shared libraries and timezone
ii  libncurses4     4.2-3.2        Shared libraries for terminal handling
ii  libstdc++2.9-gl 2.91.66-2      The GNU stdc++ library (EGCS version)