SCO Doctor User Guide

Chapter 4, Action Programs

The Daemon Action Program

Name:

Daemon

Description:

Unlike the other action programs, the Daemon Action Program performs both functions of diagnosis and remedy. It is regularly invoked by the Daemon Alert to ensure all required daemons are running.
System daemons are essential to healthy system operation. Occasionally a daemon may fail due to a transient hardware error or an unusual request. In such cases, the best remedy is to restart the daemon and to notify the system administrator via an alert notice. This action program can be configured to watch over any program and to restart the program if it fails. The list of daemons is operating system dependent and will therefore vary from system to system.
The daemons keyword supplies a list of daemons which are to be monitored. The start keyword provides a list of commands to restart the daemons. Each command is enclosed by braces and the order of this list must match the daemon keyword list. For example, if the daemon list contained:
then the start keyword could contain:
This action program has an in-built command dstart that is used to restart the lp, mmdf and cron programs.
The restart keyword specifies if failed daemons should be restarted. If set to false, an alert notice will be issued when a failed daemon is detected, but the daemon will not be restarted.
If the approval keyword is set to true, a list of commands to remove and compress the required files will be sent to the administrator for approval.

Control Keywords

approval - Request approval before acting.

daemons - List system daemons and programs which are to be monitored.

start - List commands to restart each daemon.

restart - Enable the restarting of failed daemons.

Keyword Defaults

approval - false

daemons - cron deliver lpsched

start - {dstart cron} {dstart mmdf} {dstart lp}

restart - true