On 29 May 2002, Patrick K. O'Brien said:
> How do you start and stop the application on a hosted account? Would it be
> possible to have a couple of utility CGI scripts that would start and stop
> the SCGI application itself? (I'd like to have as much control over this as
> possible without needing to involve my web host.)

Up to you.  The usual thing to do with Unix daemons is run them at boot
time from a script in /etc/init.d... but that's well outside the scope
of this mailing list.  Whatever happens, you're going to need the
cooperation of someone with root privs to ensure that the daemon starts
at system boot-time and shuts down cleanly at system shutdown.

Utility CGI scripts to start/stop the daemon sounds like a good idea,
until you realize that those CGI scripts are going to need either the
privilege of the daemon itself, or enough privilege to change
UID... ie. root.  Then you're into the morass of setuid CGI programs,
which is something I've always feared to tread in.  Ugh.  Good luck --
hope your Unix skills are sharp!

        Greg
--
Greg Ward - software developer                gward@mems-exchange.org
MEMS Exchange                            http://www.mems-exchange.org