uservd
is the daemon called by
userv
to have a task performed under different userid while
maintaining limited trust between caller and callee.
OPTIONS
There is one optional argument:
-daemon
Requests that the program daemonise. If this flag is supplied,
uservd
will fork and completely detach from the controlling terminal.
If this option is not supplied,
uservd
will remain in its starting process group and continue to use the
supplied stderr stream for any runtime system messages; this is useful
for running
uservd
as a child of
init
Errors
detected by
uservd
itself will be reported via
syslog
in either case.
SYSLOG MESSAGES:
uservd
issues diagnostics of various kinds to syslog, with facility
LOG_DAEMON
The syslog levels used are:
debug
Verbose messages about the activity of the userv daemon.
info
Two log messages about the nature and outcome of each request.
notice
Messages about the status of the daemon, including the
startup message and the hourly socket check messages.
warning
If the uservd exits because it believes that it no longer controls the
rendezvous socket (ie, its socket has become orphaned), this level
will receive messages indicating why the daemon believes this and
notifying of its shutdown.
err
A believed-recoverable error condition was detected by the userv
server in itself, the client or the operating system (this includes
resource shortages). The uservd will try to continue.
crit
The uservd detected a non-recoverable error condition after startup
and will exit.
alert
not used.
emerg
not used.
The service configuration language has the facility to direct error
and warning messages to syslog. The default facility and level is
user.err ,
but the author of the configuration file(s) can override this.
EXIT STATUS
The daemon's exit code will reflect how well things went:
0
The daemon was asked to detach itself from the controlling
terminal and this appears to have been done successfully.
1*
The daemon got a SIGTERM or SIGINT and shut itself down.
2*
The daemon believed that it was no longer the uservd and so exited to
clean up.
3
uservd was started with incorrect arguments.
4
A system call failure or other environmental problem occurred
during startup.
5*
There was a non-recoverable error after startup; the uservd had
to exit.
6
The daemon was asked to detach itself, but its detaching child
died for some unexpected reason.
SIGABRT/SIGIOT*
An unexpected internal error, usually caused by a bug in uservd. This
can also occur if an attempt to block signals using sigprocmask fails.
Outcomes marked * are not possible if the daemon is asked to detach
itself - these exit statuses will be reaped by init instead and so
will not usually be logged anywhere.
The daemon's per-request children will report the success or otherwise
of its request in their exit status. These are not usually be logged
unless they indicate a serious problem.
ENVIRONMENT
All of the environment variables passed to
uservd
will be inherited by services as part of the default environment.
(If the
set-environment
configuration directive is used, then other system configuration files
can modify the environment. Consult the specification.)
"User service daemon and client specification"
Ian Jackson
COPYRIGHT
GNU userv, including this manpage, is Copyright (C)1996-2003,2006 Ian
Jackson, except that the
userv(1)
manpage is Copyright (C)2000 Ben Harris and Copyright (C)2003 Ian
Jackson.
GNU userv is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public
Licence, version 2 or (at your option) any later version, and it comes
with NO WARRANTY, not even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
for details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with userv, if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 59
Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
HISTORY
userv
was initially written in 1996 by Ian Jackson. It became
GNUuserv
in 1999, and version 1.0 was released in 2000.