Fabian, thanks for your quick reply, and pointing me in the right direction. We are running on OpenSuse, and for the moment have settled on the following script. I'm sure it could use a lot of improvement, but we are up and running ********** !/bin/sh # Portions Copyright (c) 1995-2002 SuSE Linux AG Nuernberg, Germany. # Author: Lenz Grimmer # # /etc/init.d/monetdb ### BEGIN INIT INFO # Provides: monetdb # Required-Start: $network $remote_fs # Required-Stop: # Default-Start: 2 3 5 # Default-Stop: # Description: Start the MonetDB database server ### END INIT INFO # Shell functions sourced from /etc/rc.status: # rc_check check and set local and overall rc status # rc_status check and set local and overall rc status # rc_status -v ditto but be verbose in local rc status # rc_status -v -r ditto and clear the local rc status # rc_failed set local and overall rc status to failed # rc_failed <num> set local and overall rc status to <num> # rc_reset clear local rc status (overall remains) # rc_exit exit appropriate to overall rc status /etc/rc.status # First reset status of this service rc_reset # Return values acc. to LSB for all commands but status: # 0 - success # 1 - generic or unspecified error # 2 - invalid or excess argument(s) # 3 - unimplemented feature (e.g. "reload") # 4 - insufficient privilege # 5 - program is not installed # 6 - program is not configured # 7 - program is not running # # update these as appropriate for your server MDB_USER='root' MDB_GROUP='root' MDB_HOME=/srv/monetdb MDB_BINDIR=/srv/monetdb/bin echo "" echo "Using configuration at " $MDB_HOME/etc/monetdb5.conf echo "" # Test, if path to merovingian is valid unset MEROVINGIAN if test -x $MDB_BINDIR/merovingian then MEROVINGIAN=$MDB_BINDIR/merovingian fi test "$MEROVINGIAN" || { echo "MonetDB daemon (merovingian) is not available at indicated path:" $MDB_BINDIR "verify path settings in /etc/monetdb"; rc_failed 5; rc_status -v; rc_exit; } depend() { use net } start(){ echo -n "Starting MonetDB/SQL" startproc -s -u $MDB_USER -g $MDB_GROUP $MDB_BINDIR/merovingian # Rmember status and be verbose rc_status -v } stop() { echo -n "Stopping MonetDB/SQL" # shut down mserver if it is running kill -INT $(pidof mserver5) # stop merovingian daemon kill -INT $(pidof merovingian) # Remember status and be verbose rc_status -v } status(){ echo -n "Checking for MonetDb service: " # NOTE: checkproc returns LSB compliant status values. checkproc $MEROVINGIAN rc_status -v } case "$1" in start) start ;; stop) stop ;; status) status ;; restart) stop start ;; *) echo "Usage: {start|stop|status|restart}" exit 1 ;; esac rc_exit