Daemon Auto-Reboot (rc)

We provide each of our Virtual Server Administrators with the ability to automatically start daemons¹ (or programs) at system startup time. This service insures that important daemons that you rely on are restarted when a server is taken down and rebooted after scheduled maintenance.

To take advantage of this feature, you just add the programs you would like to run at system startup to your "~/etc/rc" file. You can either create this file locally on your local computer and upload it to your Virtual Server (in ASCII mode), or you can edit the file on your Virtual Server using your favorite UNIX editor such as pico or vi.

The file format is quite simple. Lines that begin with the "#" character are considered to be comments and are ignored. All other lines are executed with "/bin/sh", or in other words, are executed exactly as if you typed the command at a command prompt.

For example, the Java chat service Ewgie and multimedia streaming software RealServer both rely on server side daemons or servers in order to operate successfully. If you have installed either of these software packages on your Virtual Server you will want to add appropriate lines to your Server's "~/etc/rc" file to insure that these daemons are restarted at system startup time. Examples of commands to include in the "~/etc/rc" file for these two software packages are included below:

    RealServer
    ~/usr/local/pnserver/bin/pnserver ~/usr/local/pnserver/server.cfg

    Ewgie
    ~/www/htdocs/Java/Ewgie/bin/RunEwgie > /dev/null

The "> /dev/null" part of entry "redirects" all output the command generates into the special UNIX device file "/dev/null". This special file is kind of like the "Trash Can" or "Recycle Bin" on your Macintosh or Microsoft Windows desktop - with one exception - you cannot recover data sent to "/dev/null".

NOTES

¹ - a daemon is a server process initiated at boot time that waits in the background until its service is required.