When HP-UX starts up/shuts down (or changes to a different runlevel, the /sbin/rc script first calls all the required /sbin/rc?.d/* scripts with the argument "start_msg" or "stop_msg" as appropriate, and stores the messages in an array. The script also notes the length of the longest message, and adds extra dots to the other messages to make them all the same length.
After collecting the messages, /sbin/rc runs the required /sbin/rc?.d/* scripts with the argument "start" or "stop" as appropriate, one by one. Before running each script, it displays the stored message, and after the script has completed, it appends the OK / N/A / FAIL result information to the end.
You get multiple consecutive lines of dots if one of your startup scripts displays anything other than a short one-line message when called with argument "start_msg" or "stop_msg".
If your startup script outputs nothing at all when called with argument "start_msg" or "stop_msg", you'll get a line that contains only dots.
For example, the generic SysVinit startup/shutdown script that comes with BMC Patrol (a commercial system monitoring software) does not understand these HP-UX-specific arguments, and produces a multi-line error message. This causes the "multiple lines of dots" effect... Once you've made sure all your startup/shutdown scripts produce only a single line of output when called with argument "start_msg" or "stop_msg", you should get a nice output where the OK / N/A / FAIL result information is in a straight column at the right edge of a regular 80-character terminal display.
Attached is an inittest.sh script that can be used to test all the init scripts for HP-UX start_msg/stop_msg feature support. When you run it (as root), it should display a series of lines like "Testing /sbin/rc?.d/<scriptname>". Any other output indicates an error, and should be pretty self-descriptive.
MK
MK
