Package: debian-policy Version: 3.6.1.1 Priority: wishlist Tags: patch [ Note: I understand that this status suggestion is covered (without a valid example in #208010) but I believe that LSB compliance also forces some other things (like exit codes) which is still under discussion. That's why I'm opening this up as a different bug report and not following up there. If this is fixed through applying the patch at #208010 please consider the example change introduced in the patch attached (which actually has a 'status' function that works although there is obviously room for improvement) ]
I would like a new option to be added to init.d scripts: 'status' which basicly tells what status is the service currently in (either running or dead). This option is quite handy when you want to determine the system status (instead of blindly trying 'restart' and see what happens). It is also useful also to determine if the start-stop-daemon call succeeded and left a running program. Currently most init.d scripts will happily start up services which are not correctly configured and admins will not notice that they didn't start up until they check the service itself (is it running? what do the logs say?). I would appreciate more consistent behaviour here, one thing I like of other distributions is that you actually get to see if the system starts up succesfully just by looking at the boot sequence. In Debian, many init.d scripts just don't check wether they left a running service. This 'status' option proposal is a first step towards enforcing init.d scripts to do so. I've attached a patch with the proposal including both the description and a change to the sample init.d script implementing it. Please consider this for Debian's policy. Regards Javier
--- policy.sgml.orig 2005-01-19 01:10:37.000000000 +0100
+++ policy.sgml 2005-01-19 01:13:05.000000000 +0100
@@ -5382,7 +5382,7 @@
<tag><tt>restart</tt></tag>
<item>stop and restart the service if it's already running,
- otherwise start the service</item>
+ otherwise start the service,</item>
<tag><tt>reload</tt></tag>
<item><p>cause the configuration of the service to be
@@ -5392,13 +5392,17 @@
<tag><tt>force-reload</tt></tag>
<item>cause the configuration to be reloaded if the
service supports this, otherwise restart the
- service.</item>
+ service,</item>
+
+ <tag><tt>status</tt></tag>
+ <item><p>show the status of the service (either running
+ or dead).</item>
</taglist>
The <tt>start</tt>, <tt>stop</tt>, <tt>restart</tt>, and
<tt>force-reload</tt> options should be supported by all
scripts in <file>/etc/init.d</file>, the <tt>reload</tt>
- option is optional.
+ and status option are optional.
</p>
<p>
@@ -5678,19 +5682,42 @@
. /etc/default/bind
fi
+# Function used to determine if the program is alive
+is_alive () {
+ ret=1
+ if [ -r "/var/run/named.pid" ] ; then
+ pid=`cat /var/run/named.pid`
+ if [ -e /proc/$pid ] ; then
+ procname=`/bin/ps h -p $pid -C bind`
+ [ -n "$procname" ] && ret=0
+ fi
+ fi
+ return $ret
+}
+# Print output based on status
+print_status() {
+ if is_alive; then
+ echo "."
+ else
+ echo "failed."
+ exit 1
+ fi
+}
+
+
case "$1" in
start)
echo -n "Starting domain name service: named"
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec /usr/sbin/named \
-- $PARAMS
- echo "."
+ print_status
;;
stop)
echo -n "Stopping domain name service: named"
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet \
--pidfile /var/run/named.pid --exec /usr/sbin/named
- echo "."
+ print_status
;;
restart)
echo -n "Restarting domain name service: named"
@@ -5698,13 +5725,22 @@
--pidfile /var/run/named.pid --exec /usr/sbin/named
start-stop-daemon --start --verbose --exec /usr/sbin/named \
-- $PARAMS
- echo "."
+ print_status
;;
force-reload|reload)
echo -n "Reloading configuration of domain name service: named"
start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet \
--pidfile /var/run/named.pid --exec /usr/sbin/named
- echo "."
+ print_status
+ ;;
+status)
+ echo -n "Status of domain name service: "
+ if is_alive ; then
+ echo "alive."
+ else
+ echo "dead."
+ exit 1
+ fi
;;
*)
echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/bind " \
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
