Writing System V init scripts for TLD Linux =============================================== All System V init scripts are named /etc/rc.d/init.d/ where is the name of the service. There must be no ".init" suffix. Sample Script ============= #!/bin/sh # # /etc/rc.d/init.d/ # # # # # # Source function library. . /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions # Running service -- nice level. if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/ ]; then . /etc/sysconfig/ fi case "$1" in start) show Starting services touch /var/lock/subsys/ ;; stop) show Shutting down services rm -f /var/lock/subsys/ ;; status) ;; restart) ;; reload) ;; probe) ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|reload|restart[|probe]" exit 1 ;; esac Notes: the restart and reload functions may be (and commonly are) combined into one test, vis: restart|reload) You are not prohibited from adding other commands; list all commands which you intend to be used interactively to the usage message. Functions in /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions ======================================= daemon [+/-nicelevel] program [arguments] [&] Obsoletes starts a daemon, if it is not already running. Does other useful things like keeping the daemon from dumping core if it terminates unexpectedly. killproc program [signal] Sends a signal to the program; by default it sends a SIGTERM, and if the process doesn't die, it sends a SIGKILL a few seconds later. It also tries to remove the pidfile, if it finds one. pidofproc program Tries to find the pid of a program; checking likely pidfiles, using the pidof program, or even using ps. Used mainly from within other functions in this file, but also available to scripts. status program Prints status information. Assumes that the program name is the same as the servicename. Tags ==== # chkconfig: Required. is a list of levels in which the service should be started by default. and are priority numbers. For example: # chkconfig: 2345 20 80 Read 'man chkconfig' for more information. Unless there is a VERY GOOD, EXPLICIT reason to the contrary, the should be equal to 100 - # description: Required. Several lines of description, continued with '\' characters. The initial comment and following whitespace on the following lines is ignored. # description[ln]: Optional. Should be the description translated into the specified language. # processname: Optional, multiple entries allowed. For each process name started by the script, there should be a processname entry. For example, the samba service starts two daemons: # processname: smdb # processname: nmdb # config: Optional, multiple entries allowed. For each static config file used by the daemon, use a single entry. For example: # config: /etc/httpd/httpd.conf # config: /etc/httpd/srm.conf Optionally, if the server will automatically reload the config file if it is changed, you can append the word "autoreload" to the line: # config: /etc/foobar.conf autoreload # pidfile: Optional, multiple entries allowed. Use just like the config entry, except that it points at pidfiles. It is assumed that the pidfiles are only updated at process creation time, and not later. The first line of this file should be the ASCII representation of the PID; a terminating newline is optional. Any lines other than the first line are not examined. # probe: true Optional, used IN PLACE of processname, config, and pidfile. If it exists, then a proper reload-if-necessary cycle may be acheived by running these commands: command=$(/etc/rd.d/init.d/SCRIPT probe) [ -n "$command" ] && /etc/rc.d/init.d/SCRIPT $command where SCRIPT is the name of the service's sysv init script. Scripts that need to do complex processing could, as an example, return "run /var/tmp/