[gentoo-user] "User services" best practice?

[gentoo-user] "User services" best practice?

[Steve [Gentoo]]

While system-level services are typically managed by /etc/init.d/* in
Gentoo, these are maintained by root for all users.  I'm interested in
an end-user without root access who wants to 'run a service-like
process' (for example, fectmail to poll remote accounts...)  While an
end user can easily run a daemon process or kill one, this doesn't
persist across a reboot.  I've tried using fcron to schedule user
processes to re-start after a re-boot... but this feels like a hack.

Is there a standard Gentoo way to solve this (I presume common) task?


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Re: [gentoo-user] "User services" best practice?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:22:07 +0000, Steve [Gentoo] wrote:

> While system-level services are typically managed by /etc/init.d/* in
> Gentoo, these are maintained by root for all users.  I'm interested in
> an end-user without root access who wants to 'run a service-like
> process' (for example, fectmail to poll remote accounts...)  While an
> end user can easily run a daemon process or kill one, this doesn't
> persist across a reboot.  I've tried using fcron to schedule user
> processes to re-start after a re-boot... but this feels like a hack.

I use /etc/conf.d/local.start for this; e.g.

su myuser -c "command  --some-arguments" &


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Neil Bothwick

*/ \*         <- Tribbles having a swordfight

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Re: [gentoo-user] "User services" best practice?

[Jorge Almeida]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2006, Steve [Gentoo] wrote:

> While system-level services are typically managed by /etc/init.d/* in
> Gentoo, these are maintained by root for all users.  I'm interested in
> an end-user without root access who wants to 'run a service-like
> process' (for example, fectmail to poll remote accounts...)  While an
> end user can easily run a daemon process or kill one, this doesn't
> persist across a reboot.  I've tried using fcron to schedule user
> processes to re-start after a re-boot... but this feels like a hack.
>
Use daemontools. It's in portage. Take a look at this site, which is
beginner-friendly:
http://www.thedjbway.org
A run script for fetchmail is in
http://smarden.org/runit/runscripts.html#fetchmail
but you can probably cook your own once you get used to daemontools.

You probably want your service to be kept alive, even when it goes down
for whatever reason other than rebooting, so daemontools seems the
proper solution.

I'm assuming you have root privileges but don't want to run services as
root when that's not really necessary. Otherwise, you'll need root's
cooperation.
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Jorge Almeida
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Re: [gentoo-user] "User services" best practice?

[Brett I. Holcomb]

If I remember correctly with fetchmail you can start it in local.start with a 
username parameter that is the same as if the user started it.  I did that 
and used the -d option to make it a daemon so it worked every boot.  For 
other services - they may not support that.

On Monday 13 November 2006 09:20, Jorge Almeida wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Nov 2006, Steve [Gentoo] wrote:
> > While system-level services are typically managed by /etc/init.d/* in
> > Gentoo, these are maintained by root for all users.  I'm interested in
> > an end-user without root access who wants to 'run a service-like
> > process' (for example, fectmail to poll remote accounts...)  While an
> > end user can easily run a daemon process or kill one, this doesn't
> > persist across a reboot.  I've tried using fcron to schedule user
> > processes to re-start after a re-boot... but this feels like a hack.
>
> Use daemontools. It's in portage. Take a look at this site, which is
> beginner-friendly:
> http://www.thedjbway.org
> A run script for fetchmail is in
> http://smarden.org/runit/runscripts.html#fetchmail
> but you can probably cook your own once you get used to daemontools.
>
> You probably want your service to be kept alive, even when it goes down
> for whatever reason other than rebooting, so daemontools seems the
> proper solution.
>
> I'm assuming you have root privileges but don't want to run services as
> root when that's not really necessary. Otherwise, you'll need root's
> cooperation.
> --
> Jorge Almeida

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Brett I. Holcomb
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