Re: Circle Start At Boot

From: John Whitla (cjw7@gte.net)
Date: 07/05/02


> On Debian I accomplished it with the following in the initscript:
>
>    start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --pidfile
$RUNDIR/$PIDFILE \
>     --chuid $USER:$GROUP --exec $DAEMON
>

An alternative to "daemon-izing" the process might be to simply institute a
cron job designed to start up, monitor, and restart the MUD.  Set to some
small interval, say, five minutes, it would ensure reasonable restart times
even after a reboot, without placing undue load on the system.

The advantages I see this having over a boot-time daemon or script is:
- control -- when you do _not_ wish to have the MUD start up after a reboot
(or ever), it is generally more straightforward to temporarily disable a
cron job or cripple the script it is executing, rather than digging through
the run-level trees to determine which entries to add or remove (my
experience is with SuSE linux and Solaris systems, which implement boot-up
sequences along these lines);
- ownership -- the user/group lines are less blurry when started from a cron
job than via a call to chuid.  What if, down the road, you would prefer to
have the user "mud" start up the server instead of "circlemud"?  My
preference is to minimize dependencies where possible, and introducing the
need to cascade through startup scripts to find references to users adds a
layer of complexity;
- indirection -- Presumably, the execution of the chuid call implies that a
MUD server user has been created and configured.  Having cron execute a
command from some logical executables directory, like ../$user/bin, removes
a layer of indirection.  Typically, indirection is primarily at issue when
debugging, so this may not be of huge benefit.  Still, simplicity is often a
desirable alternative.

</two cents>

J.

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