Re: /var/run/

Steven Kurylo wrote:

>> I still fail to see how at/anacron/cron and inetd and init are
>> variations of the same task, other than the most vague idea that "they
>> are all ways of starting programs/services." (so is the command line...
>> are we somehow going to move that into upstart too?) Their functions
>> are quite different.
>
>
> Other than inetd, they all start tasks at different times (startup and
> every 3pm, etc). All of them need to sanatize the shell, report on
> failure, etc.
>
Yes, but.

init: starts programs at startup. Backgrounds them (okay... they have
to background themselves...) and they write to logs (usually). Programs
should not accept interactive input. (with a few possible exceptions.)
(BTW, I've heard enough intelligent replies here to agree that something
better could replace init.)

at/anacron/cron: start programs at specified times. Program results are
emailed to user who requested the program to run. Programs must run
without interactive input.

inetd: starts a program when a connection comes in on a specified port.
Connects the I/O from that program to the socket. Programs may or may
not have interactive input.

As you can probably see from my list, I would have no real problem with
combining at/anacron/cron. Aside from that, there's very little in
common between the listed programs.

> Of course I'd just write a program called sanatize - then I could
> include it at the top of my scripts if needed. As you said I need
> that from the CLI at times too.
>
I might call it sanitize, but that's just nitpicking. ;-)

ttyl
srw
Received on Sat Jan 6 14:38:53 2007