# $Id: README,v 1.2 2009/01/21 22:08:53 ksb Exp $

I really like the BSD "daemon" program to start by local data collection
services.  It is really handy.  Sadly the BSD guys glued it into their
"libutil" just like I glue everything into mkcmd.  But I don't have a way
to install libutil on hosts that don't have the hacks in the C run-time
to support it.  So I coded a daemon program based on their work, but it
has no glue to their "flopen()" or the pidfile management code.

It also has a few edges fixed:
	It exits correctly when the program doesn't execvp (for example
	when it doesn't exist.

	It allows you to specify an explicit group for the process, for
	example "nobody:mail" for times when you want to run something
	where the group is the only credential you need.

	It doesn't hold a flock(2) on the pidfile, rather it checks to
	see if the pid in the file is running (via kill(pid, 0)).

Example for an HP-UX PEG start script:
	# $_revision_tag_$
	PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/opt/fedex/sac/peg/bin:$PATH
	export PATH
	HNAME="bmendb01.prod"
	daemon -cf -p - -u peg /opt/fedex/sac/peg/libexec/unixstats -N $HNAME -p 55
	daemon -cf -p - -u root /opt/fedex/sac/peg/libexec/networkstats -N $HNAME -p 53 lan0
	exit 0

The above could be a lot more versatile, for example:	
	+ compute the HNAME, but HP-UX hates FQDNs
	+ poll each active lan$INSTANCE network interfaces
	+ run some disk collection stats
on the plus side -- it works.

--
ksb, Jan 2009