topic Re: diff bw/ unused and dead in Operating System - Linux

diff bw/ unused and dead

Maaz — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:15:23 GMT

Dear Experts
OS: Suse Ent Server 10(sles 10)

when I stop some services, and then check the status, it shows the status as "dead", while some other stoped services shows the status as "unused" ... may I know why ?

e.g
#rcnamed stop
Shutting down name server BIND done
# rcnamed status
Checking for nameserver BIND dead

#rcsquid stop
Shutting down WWW-proxy squid done
# rcsquid status
Checking for WWW-proxy squid unused

"rcsquid status " shows me "unused", while "rcnamed status " shows me "dead"

likewise some services which are not configured to start at boot time, displays their status, as "unused" ... why, If a service is configured not to run automatically(during boot), then why it shows its status as "unused". Following is the snippet from messages/activities appear on the console during the system startup

xend unused
xendomains unused
Mount SMB/ CIFS File Systems unused

My point is if a service is not configured to run automatically, it should remain silent, why it displays its status as "unused".
I am asking this because i have a lot many sevices that are cofigured not to run automatically during system startup, and they remain silent, i.e those services doesnt display any message like "apache unused"

I think I have cleared/explain my points

likewise what is runlevel "B", in yast > system > System Services(runlevel)

Plz help

Re: diff bw/ unused and dead

Ivan Ferreira — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:28:27 GMT

I'm not a SUSE expert, but checking an SUSE init script, it looks like the unused status is the normal status for services that are not running.

The dead status probably occurs when the daemon is not running but a file related with the daemon is found in /var/run or /var/lock.

Re: diff bw/ unused and dead

Vitaly Karasik_1 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 02:26:36 GMT

I guess, "unused" is SUSE's alias for "stopped" service in RH.

and "dead" seems to be a name for situation when daemon crashed but status file[s](under /var/run/, /var/lock/subsys) exist.

Re: diff bw/ unused and dead

Maaz — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 05:24:37 GMT

>"dead" seems to be a name for situation when daemon crashed but status file[s](under /var/run/, /var/lock/subsys)exist.

whenever i stope the named service, its status shows as "dead",... there is no chance of "daemon crash" becuase named works quite fine, no eror, every query resolves, perfectly, and no error/warning in logs also.
Even I also check the issue, that I started the services, and then immediately stoped the service, but again the status shows me as "dead"

Re: diff bw/ unused and dead

Vitaly Karasik_1 — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 05:40:31 GMT

I think, we receive "dead" status when process doesn't run, but pid file into /var/run exists. And we can get this situation not because daemon really crashed but just because some bug in the startup script.

if you will send ad /etc/init.d/named script from your suse system, we'll be able to understand more.

Re: diff bw/ unused and dead

Maaz — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:26:36 GMT

here its is(/etc/rc.d/named)

Re: diff bw/ unused and dead

Maaz — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:39:31 GMT

>I think, we receive "dead" status when process doesn't run, but pid file into /var/run exists.

# rcnamed start
rcnamed start
Starting name server BIND done

# ls /var/run/named
named.pid

# cat /var/run/named/named.pid
5803

# rcnamed stop
Shutting down name server BIND done

# ls /var/run/named

/var/run/named directory is empty.
# rcnamed status
Checking for nameserver BIND dead

regards