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I was looking through /etc/init.d/ssh to get an idea of how a "proper" sys daemon is run at boot (I'm trying to add svnserve to that list). I saw this log_daemon_msg used as a command, but I have no idea what it is.

which log_daemon_msg and man log_daemon_msg came up empty.

Example:

log_daemon_msg "Starting OpenBSD Secure Shell server" "sshd" || true
if start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --oknodo --pidfile /var/run/sshd.pid --exec /usr/sbin/sshd -- $SSHD_OPTS; then
    log_end_msg 0 || true
else
    log_end_msg 1 || true
fi

How does that work? I tried Googling around, but the only things I could find were questions about where it records its messages, which is useless since I hardly know how to use it or what it even is - a command, a builtin, or something else?

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    Show the complete file: it is likely that this is function defined in a file sourced at the beginning of /etc/init.d/ssh – Matteo Jan 24 '13 at 7:33
20

That is LSB related functions. Please have a look to /lib/lsb/init-functions and/or /etc/redhat-lsb/lsb_log_message. The path depends on your distro.

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    Thank you! My googling had revealed that it was somehow related to LSB, and I looked at the Wiki page in fact, but it wasn't particularly useful. Thanks for the path! (It was the former, this is Ubuntu server.) – Dubslow Jan 24 '13 at 7:40
  • Wow, I just missed this little . /lib/lsb/init-functions at the top of the init script I was analyzing... Seems like it's better to write source <...> instead of . <...> when you want the script to be easily analyzed. – Tomasz Gandor Aug 25 '17 at 12:07
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I don't have BSD and never used it... but for sure log_daemon_message must be a shell function. Look above that to statements like:

. ./functions

That sources all the functions in the function file. The other thing you can do is to look for the specific function with find:

find /etc -type f -exec grep -li log_daemon_msg {} \;

And see what is in the files. As I said I don't have BSD, but research is fun!

Cheers and good luck

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  • It's not BSD, it's Ubuntu 12.04 server; it's just that ssh is a BSD program. @Matteo, I grep'd the file, it's not a locally defined function. I didn't think to check what other files it loads, I'll go do that now. The reason I asked here though is that one result suggested that it's a family of common/widespread functions. – Dubslow Jan 24 '13 at 7:36

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