Questions[start-stop-daemon](server)

I am trying to start a init.d daemon on Debian 8 after network and DNS is up and running. That's the script I am using:

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          local_daemon
# Required-Start:    $all $local_fs $remote_fs $network $named $time $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $all $local_fs $remote_fs $network $named $time $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Starts a Daemon.
# Description:       Starts a custom daemon.
### END INIT INFO

I have several servers and this mostly works. However, in some cases DNS is not yet ready when the script is called. So, the daemon is not be able to connect to e.g. www.domain.com while it is run. Eventually DNS is ready, but it's after the script is run (not at the time when it is run).

Question: How can I force DNS to be ready when the script is called? My assumption was that $named in "Required-Start:" is responsible for DNS to be setup and ready. This doesn't seem to be the case. How can I force a script to be executed only when domain name resolution (DNS) & networking is ready?

EDIT 2017-01-26: thanks for the feedback. It's a LIVE-server and my Linux skills are rudimentary at best. I'd rather not break things while they are working fine otherwise. Anyhow, I settled with a 20 second sleep before the server is started, which seems to be working fine. Yes, I am very well aware that this is a "hack":

start() {
  # wait a while to make sure the network is ready!
  sleep 20

  # run the server
  ...
}

case "$1" in
start)
  # starts the server in a separate thread
  start &
  ;;
stop)
  # stop: we do nothing special
  ;;
*)
  ;;
esac
exit 0

root@mountain-lion:/opt/smartfox# ls -lha
total 180K
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4.0K 2012-06-01 14:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4.0K 2012-06-01 09:41 ..
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4.0K 2009-05-17 21:57 lib
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   22 2012-06-01 09:41 logs -> /var/opt/smartfox/logs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1.4K 2012-06-01 14:28 run.sh


root@mountain-lion:/opt/smartfox# cat run.sh 
#!/bin/bash    
java -cp "./:./sfsExtensions/:lib/activation.jar:lib/commons-beanutils.jar:lib/commons-collections-3.2.jar:lib/commons-dbcp-1.2.1.jar:lib/commons-lang-2.3.jar:lib/commons-logging-1.1.jar:lib/commons-pool-1.2.jar:lib/concurrent.jar:lib/ezmorph-1.0.3.jar:lib/h2.jar:lib/js.jar:lib/json-lib-2.1-jdk15.jar:lib/json.jar:lib/jsr173_1.0_api.jar:lib/jysfs.jar:lib/jython.jar:lib/nanoxml-2.2.1.jar:lib/wrapper.jar:lib/xbean.jar:lib/javamail/imap.jar:lib/javamail/mailapi.jar:lib/javamail/pop3.jar:lib/javamail/smtp.jar:lib/jetty/jetty.jar:lib/jetty/jetty-util.jar:lib/jetty/jstl.jar:lib/jetty/multipartrequest.jar:lib/jetty/servlet-api.jar:lib/jetty/standard.jar:lib/jsp-2.1/commons-el-1.0.jar:lib/jsp-2.1/core-3.1.0.jar:lib/jsp-2.1/jsp-2.1.jar:lib/jsp-2.1/jsp-api-2.1.jar:lib/jsp-2.1/jstl.jar:lib/jsp-2.1/standard.jar:lib/lsc.jar:lib/commons-io-1.4.jar" \
it.gotoandplay.smartfoxserver.SmartFoxServer > logs/smartfox.out 2>&1 &
JAVAPID=$!
echo "Started Smartfox. JVM PID = $JAVAPID"
trap "echo Stopping Smartfox.; kill $JAVAPID" INT TERM
wait
echo "Smartfox stopped."


root@mountain-lion:/opt/smartfox# start-stop-daemon --start --make-pidfile --pidfile /var/opt/smartfox/smartfox.pid --exec ./run.sh
start-stop-daemon: unable to start ./run.sh (No such file or directory)

Why can't start-stop-daemon find the script?

On Ubuntu, I copied /etc/init.d/skeleton as a new file and made it "all" executable (just like the others in that directory). In it, I made a "foo" that was just another Bash script in /usr/sbin, but it was special in that it sits in a loop waiting on a named pipe connection from a PHP web page. (More details on that are here, although that's a side topic.)

Because it has to wait in a loop on a named pipe connection, this hung the command up at command line obviously. Not a big deal, because I actually want it to hang and wait on a new connection. But I don't want it happening in the foreground. So, I made start-stop-daemon utilize the --background option.

Okay, it works great for starting and status, but stopping doesn't work -- it leaves the command in memory, as well as the cat /tmp/pipe command I have in my /usr/sbin/foo Bash script. They warn that this could happen when using the --background option on the start-stop-daemon command.

THE QUESTION

So, what's the right way to properly stop /usr/sbin/foo when it's run with start-stop-daemon --background, along with stop any child processes (the cat /tmp/pipe command, for instance) that might be called by /usr/sbin/foo? I mean, I guess I could use killall, but that's kind of deadly. Perhaps you know of a more efficient way?

I need to create an init script for an IRC logger. I copied /etc/init.d/skeleton. I filled in the configuration section to fit my needs and I also had to add --background to the start daemon command since my IRC logger doesn't split off. The logger starts up fine when I use my init script, but it doesn't create the .pid file like it should. As a result the process cannot be stopped unless I find out the process ID myself and kill it. Here is the script:

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          skeleton
# Required-Start:    $remote_fsh
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Example initscript
# Description:       This file should be used to construct scripts to be
#                    placed in /etc/init.d.
### END INIT INFO

# Author: Cory Walker <[email protected]>
#
# Please remove the "Author" lines above and replace them
# with your own name if you copy and modify this script.

# Do NOT "set -e"

# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script
PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
DESC="Logs specified IRC channels."
NAME=irclogger
DAEMON=/usr/sbin/$NAME
#DAEMON_ARGS="irc.freenode.net linux4nano linux4nano-dev freemyipod freemyipod-dev"
DAEMON_ARGS="irc.freenode.net blablabla"
PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME

# Exit if the package is not installed
[ -x "$DAEMON" ] || exit 0

# Read configuration variable file if it is present
[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME

# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
. /lib/init/vars.sh

# Define LSB log_* functions.
# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.0-6) to ensure that this file is present.
. /lib/lsb/init-functions

#
# Function that starts the daemon/service
#
do_start()
{
 # Return
 #   0 if daemon has been started
 #   1 if daemon was already running
 #   2 if daemon could not be started
 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON --test > /dev/null \
  || return 1
 start-stop-daemon --start --background --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- \
  $DAEMON_ARGS \
  || return 2
 # Add code here, if necessary, that waits for the process to be ready
 # to handle requests from services started subsequently which depend
 # on this one.  As a last resort, sleep for some time.
}

#
# Function that stops the daemon/service
#
do_stop()
{
 # Return
 #   0 if daemon has been stopped
 #   1 if daemon was already stopped
 #   2 if daemon could not be stopped
 #   other if a failure occurred
 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 RETVAL="$?"
 [ "$RETVAL" = 2 ] && return 2
 # Wait for children to finish too if this is a daemon that forks
 # and if the daemon is only ever run from this initscript.
 # If the above conditions are not satisfied then add some other code
 # that waits for the process to drop all resources that could be
 # needed by services started subsequently.  A last resort is to
 # sleep for some time.
 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --retry=0/30/KILL/5 --exec $DAEMON
 [ "$?" = 2 ] && return 2
 # Many daemons don't delete their pidfiles when they exit.
 rm -f $PIDFILE
 return "$RETVAL"
}

#
# Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
#
do_reload() {
 #
 # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
 # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
 # then implement that here.
 #
 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
 return 0
}

case "$1" in
  start)
 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
 do_start
 case "$?" in
  0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
  2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 esac
 ;;
  stop)
 [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
 do_stop
 case "$?" in
  0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
  2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
 esac
 ;;
  #reload|force-reload)
 #
 # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
 # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
 #
 #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
 #do_reload
 #log_end_msg $?
 #;;
  restart|force-reload)
 #
 # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
 # 'force-reload' alias
 #
 log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
 do_stop
 case "$?" in
   0|1)
  do_start
  case "$?" in
   0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
   1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
   *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
  esac
  ;;
   *)
    # Failed to stop
  log_end_msg 1
  ;;
 esac
 ;;
  *)
 #echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
 echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
 exit 3
 ;;
esac

:

I have Debian Lenny box, where I plan to extensively use start-stop-daemon. The trouble is, the standard Debian start-stop-daemon doesn't support output redirection: --stdout and --stderr keys, which I want to use to log daemons activity.

Should I just update start-stop-daemon from sources? I tried apt-get update process, the version still lacks features. Will it break something in Debian? Or should I compile new start-stop-daemon to some new directory and use it for my daemons, leaving standard Debian package in place?

I don't want to write .sh wrapper scripts to each daemon, as there will be many of them.