[CentOS] logrotate.d - reload vs restart

Mon Dec 27 18:40:48 UTC 2010
Bill Campbell <centos at celestial.com>

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010, Frank Cox wrote:
>Looking at some of the stuff in /etc/logrotate.d, I see entries like this in
>some of the configuration files:
>
>postrotate
>	/sbin/service privoxy reload  2> /dev/null || true
>
>>From the commandline, that doesn't work:
>
># /sbin/service privoxy reload  2> /dev/null || true
>Usage: /etc/init.d/privoxy {start|stop|restart}
>
>Changing reload to restart does work:
>
>]# /sbin/service privoxy restart 2> /dev/null || true
>Stopping Privoxy, OK.
>Starting Privoxy, OK.
>
>I find "reload" in the httpd logrotate file as well:
>
>postrotate
>        /sbin/service httpd reload > /dev/null 2>/dev/null || true
>
>What am I failing to understand?

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.

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.

Bill
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