STALEPID(1) BSD General Commands Manual STALEPID(1)NAMEstalepid — check for and remove stale process ID files
SYNOPSISstalepid [-5bdhV] pidfile processname
DESCRIPTION
The stalepid utility was developed to facilitate the startup of servers
that write their process ID to a file and refuse to start if that file
exists (e.g. when the process was last terminated by an unclean shutdown,
or simply killed without given the chance to clean up the process ID
file). The stalepid utility is used to check for and possibly remove
those stale process ID files. Upon its invocation, stalepid checks for
the following conditions:
- the file specified by the pidfile argument exists;
- it contains a single line, and the line contains a single number;
- there is no process with the process ID specified in the file, or if
there is one, it is not named processname.
If all those conditions are met, the stalepid utility will remove the
file specified by the pidfile argument, thus allowing the next invocation
of the server to proceed normally.
The following options are available:
-5 Invoke the ps(1) utility using System V syntax instead of BSD
ps(1) syntax (not implemented yet).
-b Invoke the ps(1) utility using BSD syntax (the default behavior).
-d Display diagnostic information during the course of operation.
-h Display a short help message and exit.
-V Display program version information and exit.
ENVIRONMENT
Not taken in consideration in the present version.
FILES
None relevant in the present version.
BUGS
Support for System V ps(1) syntax via the -5 flag is not implemented yet.
HISTORY
The stalepid was developed by Peter Pentchev in 2003.
AUTHORS
Peter Pentchev ⟨roam@ringlet.net⟩.
BSD December 4, 2003 BSD
