Running program as a daemon

[stanl]

I would appreciate it if someone could advise me how to set up a program to run as a daemon ; specifically the program redshift.

I read the rcctl man page and the daemon section in the OpenBSD handbook but all I get is: "service redshift does not exist".

Thank you

[jmccue]

I never heard of redshift, I looked it up, seems this adjusted your screen color in X. So running it via rcctl(1) probably will not work.

I would guess you kick it of from inside your ~/.xsession.

[jggimi]

The rcctl(8) man page describes controlling daemons, which must be pre-established through daemon control scripts that have already been provisioned. In the SEE ALSO list of the rcctl(8) man page, you'll find the rc.d(8) man page, which describes using daemon control scripts, and its SEE ALSO refers to the rc.subr(8) man page, which describes in detail the routines required within those scripts.

If you're comfortable with shell scripting, you could write your own daemon control script for redshift.
Of course, redshift is designed to be started from your X session control script, rather than as a system daeom.

But, if the script ends up working well for you, you might consider adding it to the redshift port, from which the redshift package is built. And then, perhaps submitting your revision of the port to the ports@ mailing list for review and possible addition to the redshift port, for all users. Here's a link to the section in the Porter's Handbook on adding daemon control scripts to ports:http://www.openbsd.org/faq/ports/spe...html#RcScripts

[fvgit]

I have the snippet below in my ~/.xsession:

if [ -f /usr/local/bin/redshift ]; then
    redshift &
fi

Works very well.

[stanl]

My thanks to jmccue, jggimi and fvgit for taking the time to reply.

Unfortunately, I know nothing about shell scripting so the chances of me writing a daemon control script for redshift are slim.

Finally, at the risk of wearing out my welcome, why fvgit's little snippet (which I have added to my ~/.xsession) and not simply:

/usr/local/bin/redshift &

in ~/.xsession?

Thank you

[J65nko]

Maybe fvgit has multiple machines and only wants to use redshift on one of them.

By making the invocation of redshift conditional, he still can use one standard .xsession on all of them.

[stanl]

Thank you for the explanation. I hadn't considered the possibility of more than one machine.