Klee points out: > I definitely agree regarding 'start|stop|restart'. However, I believe > that 'reload' should take action only if properly supported by the > system in question. When I use the 'reload' argument, it's for the > specific purpose of making the system reload it's configuration files > without interrupting service --- if it's not available, I don't > necessarily want the system to go ahead and restart the process > anyway.
Good point. > If I don't mind the process being killed and restarted, I can always > habitually type '/etc/init.d/<script> restart' and avoid the issue > entirely. > > Scripts that want to be clever about restarting systems should use > '/etc/init.d/<script> reload || /etc/init.d/<script> restart'. This > makes script-writing slightly more complicated, but I'd argue that > this will be a much less common case than the interactive usages. However, I think that this functionality could better be put in the init.d script - adding an additional argument possibility for an existing case is easy, and the script itself knows whether it can support reloading with or without disrupting service. This means splitting `reload' into two arguments, which in a script that can do it without disrupting service do the same thing, and which in other packages either do `restart' or fail. I can't think of any very good names for these at the moment, apart from using adverbs (eg `mustreload' or `mayreload'). Ian.
