Re: Executing script in normal/daemon mode and adding start/stop capability

[almut]

* How can I add start/stop commands for the script.

One way to do it would be to add the respective options to your script (as you're already using Getopt::Long, this should be rather straightforward).  The implementation would typically involve a pid-file to store the PID which you need to communicate with a potentially running instance of the script. Something like:

• start
  

  • Check if there's a pid-file.
  • If so, read the PID from the file, and send that PID signal number zero to check if it's still alive.
  • If it is alive, output "... already running", and quit.
  • In case no running instance is found, start the daemon the same way you would do from the command line. When successful, create a pid-file containing the PID of the process.

• stop
  

  • Check if there's a pid-file.
  • If there is no pid-file, output "... doesn't seem to be running", and quit.
  • Otherwise, read the PID from the file, and send that PID the TERM signal (or whatever signal makes your script quit gracefully).
  • Delete the pid-file. (In case you're paranoid, you might want to wait a while and then check whether the TERM signal did actually terminate the process, before deleting the pid-file. If not, output an error message.)