cinit - Daemons backgrounding ============================= Nico Schottelius 0.1, for cinit 0.3, Initial versinon from 2005-06-12 This document describes the backgrounding process and how to disable it. Definition ----------- A daemon is a program which runs in the background. Running in the background means you cannot access the process directly (like you can press a key in a shell). Daemons and cinit ------------------ cinit normally watches system services and restarts them (`respawn` flag in the configuration). If the process goes to background, cinit cannot control it directly anymore. List of daemons and non-forking parameters ------------------------------------------- The following daemons / servers are known to avoid backgrounding easily: - acpid [x86 power management]: -f (undocumentated but works) - apache [webserver]: -DFOREGROUND - asterisk [pbx]: -f - bind [dns server/caching]: -f - cardmgr [pcmcia/cardbus]: -f - cron (vixie) [schedular]: -f - cupsd [printer server]: -f or -F - dhclient [dhcp client]: -d - dhcp3 (isc) [dhcp server]: -f - distccd [compile server]: normal behaviour - dnsmasq [dhcp/tfpt/dns]: -k - dovecot [imap/pop3 server]: -F - fam [file alteration monitor]:-f - fcron [schedular]: -f - frox [ftp proxy]: "NoDetach" in config - freeradius [radiusd]: -f - gdm [display manager]: -nodaemon - hybrid [irc server]: -foreground - icecast2 [sound streamer]: normal behaviour - mini-lpd [printer server]: normal behaviour - metalog [log server]: normal behaviour - monotone [vcs]: normal behaviour - mpd [music server]: --no-daemon - nessusd ["security server"]: normal behaviour - ntpd [time server]: -n - nylon [socks proxy]: -f (prints output to terminal) - oidentd [identd server]: -i - oops [http proxy]: normal behaviour - openpbx [pbx]: -f - openssh [ssh server]: -D - openvpn [vpn server]: normal behaviour - pbbuttonsd [power management]:normal behaviour - portmap [portmapper]: -f - proftpd [ftp server]: -n - qmail [mta]: normal behaviour - rsync ["file server"]: --no-detach - silcd ["secure chat server"]: -F, --foreground - slapd [ldap]: -d - snmpd [snmp daemon]: -f - stunnel [ssl wrapper]: "foreground = yes" in config - svnserve [vcs]: --foreground - syslogd [log server]: -n - syslog-ng [log server]: -F - tcpserver [super server]: normal behaviour - udhcpc [dhcp client]: normal behaviour - vsftpd [ftp server]: normal behaviour (or: config: background=no) - xinetd [super server]: -dontfork Problematic daemons ------------------- Those are the daemons that do not offer the possibility (as of release 0.2): - atd (no switch, no configuraton option) - inetd (some variants) - nscd (no switch, no configuraton option)