Linux and Daemons

[Leo Mauler]

--- Charles Steinkuehler <charles at steinkuehler.net>
wrote:

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> James Sissel wrote:
>
> > | (for example, only [[members of a certain 
> > | religion]] can cast our demons)
> 
> > Really?  Only [[members of a certain religion]] 
> > can do that?  Or maybe a better question 
> > should be "Can [[members of a certain religion]] 
> > really do that?"  What proof do you have that 
> > *anybody* can or can't do that?  Or for that 
> > matter, what proof do you have demons even 
> > exist?
> 
> Of course daemons exist...how else would you run
> apache, nfs, ntp, &c.
> 
> However, I thought all you had to do to banish a
> daemon was a simple 'kill -9', or if you're 
> feeling more friendly, perhaps an
> 
> ~  /etc/init.d/<daemon> stop
> 
> Now you're telling me I have to involve 
> [[a certain religion]]?!?  Is there some way I 
> can do that from a shell script, or do I have 
> to make direct calls to the kernel?
> 
> I looked, but I can't seem to find a man page 
> for anything that looks like an 'exorcise' 
> utility or syscall.  :-(

Linux looks at daemons differently from [a certain
religion].  Linux daemons are considered useful most
of the time.  When they start destroying your
partition records (so that you know that the daemon
has hidden that picture of your mother in there
somewhere) and start spewing "stuff" all over your
hard drive, then you reach for the kill command. 
However, you then do your best to bring back the
daemon, to "re-possess" your computer at the earliest
available opportunity.

"Exorcisms" try to drive out daemons completely, such
that they do not return.  An "exorcise" command in
Linux would be a shell script which killed the daemon
and then deleted the daemon's executable, which is
completely antithetical to the proper operation of
Linux.  

Not to mention a sure way to go straight to
"dependency hell".  ]:-)


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