How do I run a script as a service

NickJH · 09-13-2009, 11:52 AM

Hi,
I have a bash script I wrote to monitor two VPN connections. I currently start it from rc.local, but to kill it I have to do a ps aux .... and a kill. To get round this I have hacked another init script, but it does not work as expected. My script is:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
#
# Startup script for ipsec-check. Hacked from pptpd
#
# description: This script starts ipsec-check
# processname: ipsec-check
# pidfile: /var/run/ipsec-check.pid

# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

prog="ipsec-check"
RETVAL=0

# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
  start)
	echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
	daemon /etc/ipsec-check >/dev/null 2>&1 &
	RETVAL=$?
	echo
	[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/ipsec-check
	;;
  stop)
	echo -n $"Stopping $prog: "
	killproc ipsec-check
	RETVAL=$?
	echo
	[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/ipsec-check
	;;
  status)
	status ipsec-check
	RETVAL=$?
	;;
  restart|reload)
	$0 stop
	$0 start
	RETVAL=$?
	;;
  condrestart)
	if test "x`/sbin/pidof ipsec-check`" != x; then
		$0 stop
		$0 start
		RETVAL=$?
	fi
	;;
  *)
	echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|reload|condrestart|status}"
	exit 1
esac

exit $RETVAL

If I use that daemon line I end up with 3 processes:

Code:

 ps aux | grep ipsec.c
root     13148  0.0  0.0   4524   772 pts/0    S    17:41   0:00 /bin/sh /etc/init.d/ipsec-check start
root     13150  0.0  0.0   4520  1176 pts/0    S    17:41   0:00 /bin/bash -c ulimit -S -c 0 >/dev/null 2>&1 ; /etc/ipsec-check
root     13151  0.0  0.0   4520  1212 pts/0    S    17:41   0:00 /bin/bash /etc/ipsec-check

instead of just the one I want (13151 in this case).

How do I get it to run just one process?

catkin · 09-13-2009, 12:05 PM

Might be worth reading the start-stop-daemon man page.

NickJH · 09-13-2009, 12:32 PM

I've had a read of it. If I understand it the -b switch may be useful but it says use as a last resort.

I've tried the start-stop-daemon command instead of just daemon, but the system (ClarkConnect CE5.0) just says command not found. If I try the -b switch with the daemon command then run ps aux nothing shows so either it has run and terminated or not run at all.

I may be being dense here or I'm just too new.

catkin · 09-13-2009, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickJH

I've tried the start-stop-daemon command instead of just daemon, but the system (ClarkConnect CE5.0) just says command not found. If I try the -b switch with the daemon command then run ps aux nothing shows so either it has run and terminated or not run at all.

That's inconvenient. Thanks for giving your distro. What does the daemon function look like? Maybe the solution is in a modified version ...

NickJH · 09-13-2009, 01:55 PM

When you say "what does it look like", how to I tell?

NickJH · 09-14-2009, 01:56 PM

The answer seems to be to change the starting daemon line to:

Code:

daemon "/etc/ipsec-check &"

I guess the key is the quote marks enclosing the &. Presumably this puts ipsec-check into the background instead of daemon. Is this a correct interpretation?