[CentOS] logrotate.d - reload vs restart

Frank Cox theatre at sasktel.net
Mon Dec 27 19:24:28 UTC 2010


On Mon, 27 Dec 2010 10:40:48 -0800
Bill Campbell wrote:

> The reload command usually does a ``kill -HUP'' on the running
> process to get it to reload its configuration files whild restart
> will kill the running process and restart it which, of course,
> causes it to read the configuration.  The reload command should
> cause the running process to close and reopen log files.

"reload" doesn't appear to be recognized as a command line option with
the /sbin/service command, as seen here:

# /sbin/service privoxy reload  2> /dev/null || true
Usage: /etc/init.d/privoxy {start|stop|restart}

Does that vary between what /sbin/service is trying to reload?

> 
> Unfortunately, not all programs properly handle the HUP command,
> either not reading the configuration, not properly handling log
> files, or both.  Thus the restart should always work while reload
> may not depending on the application.

This came up because I'm trying to figure out why privoxy crashes overnight
sometimes (and not at other times of the day).  It occurred to me that perhaps
some of the jiggery-pokery involved in the logrotate business might be at the
root of the issue.

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