start-stop-daemon incorrect pid

[Rory Vieira]

Rob,

> 3) So what happens if the thing's already running?  The libbb code doesn't
> check for an existing applet, which I thought was the point of a pidfile...?

Does libbb need to do that or the init.d script that started the
daemon in the first place? (I use the latter, so do many other
distro's)

Without a pid, I can only check wether a service is running or not...
With a pidfile I gain an additional check:
service has died (and left the pid file intact...) which to me is
quite different to just "not running".
Especially my suse distro makes a clear distinction between the two
(although I have to admit there's no real physical difference... the
proces is just not there :) )

Personally I thing Nataneal is quite right in "creating pids sounds
like bloat...)
But you have to admit that Stephane is going in the right direction
and leaving that choice up to the end-user... (like me LOL)
And again, why does inetd write it's pid? (or udhcp)

Side note:
In my current buildroot system I added the killproc package
(containing startproc,killproc,checkproc). It doesn't really work with
bb applets UNLESS:
I use start-stop-deamon to start the applet in the foreground :( (I do
this with klogd/syslogd now). Checkproc is now capable of making a
distinction between the service running, not running, or stale (died,
whatever)...

Cheers,
-- 
Rory Vieira
rory dot vieira at gmail dot com