Arch Linux

pelle.k

Member

From: Åre, Sweden (EU)

Registered: 2006-04-30

Posts: 667

Log failure/success of init daemons?

As everyone knows, linux has strong CLI roots, and that's clearly visible, especially here on the arch forums. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes i think people forget that not everyone checks the system logs everytime the log in to their system. Nor do I watch the splash/init OK/FAIL everytime i boot up arch.
Granted, my computer is only a desktop system, but that doesn't mean i would like to know if, say, moblock, lighttpd, samba or any other deamon fails (or complains), and have that info easily accessible.
So instead of whining, i propose that every daemon in arch should preferably, when run at bootup, return it's status to a file, in a format that is both readable to humans and easy to parse from a third party utility.
Lets say this file would only be readable for a member of a certain group, for security reasons. It's contents may be something simple as; name, pid, status/error message.

Please, express your thoughts on this idea...

---

"Your beliefs can be like fences that surround you.
You must first see them or you will not even realize that you are not free, simply because you will not see beyond the fences.
They will represent the boundaries of your experience."
SETH / Jane Roberts

bsdson.tw

Member

From: Taiwan

Registered: 2005-05-06

Posts: 161

Re: Log failure/success of init daemons?

could we just insert some "logger" commands in the service start/stop scripts to report if it succeeds or fails?
Is this what you mean?

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Log failure/success of init daemons?

Well, we currently have

ls /var/run/daemons

If it's there, it started successfully - if it's not, investigate.