SYNOPSIS

hobbitlaunch [options]

DESCRIPTION

hobbitlaunch(8) is the main program that controls the execution and scheduling of all of the components in the Xymon system.

hobbitlaunch allows the administrator to add, remove or change the set of Xymon applications and extensions without restarting Xymon - hobbitlaunch will automatically notice any changes in the set of tasks, and change the scheduling of activities accordingly.

hobbitlaunch also allows the administrator to setup specific logfiles for each component of the Xymon system, instead of getting output from all components logged to a single file.

OPTIONS

--env=FILENAME

Loads the environment from FILENAME before starting other tools. The environment defined by FILENAME is the default, it can be overridden by the ENVFILE option in hobbitlaunch.cfg(5)

--config=FILENAME

This option defines the file that hobbitlaunch scans for tasks it must launch. A description of this file is in hobbitlaunch.cfg(5) The default tasklist is /etc/hobbitlaunch.cfg

--log=FILENAME

Defines the logfile where hobbitlaunch logs information about failures to launch tasks and other data about the operation of hobbitlaunch. Logs from individual tasks are defined in the hobbitlaunch.cfg file. By default this is logged to stdout.

--pidfile=FILENAME

Filename which hobbitlaunch saves its own process-ID to. Commonly used by automated start/stop scripts.

--verbose

Logs the launch of all tasks to the logfile. Note that the logfile may become quite large if you enable this.

--dump

Just dump the contents of the hobbitlaunch.cfg file after parsing it. Used for debugging.

--debug

Enable debugging output while running.

--no-daemon

hobbitlaunch normally detaches from the controlling tty and runs as a background task. This option keeps it running in the foreground.

STARTING TASKS

hobbitlaunch will read the configuration file and start all of the tasks listed there.

If a task completes abnormally (i.e. terminated by a signal or with a non-zero exit status), then hobbitlaunch will attempt to restart it 5 times. If it still will not run, then the task is disabled for 10 minutes. This will be logged to the hobbitlaunch logfile.

If the configuration file changes, hobbitlaunch will re-read it and notice any changes. If a running task was removed from the configuration, then the task is stopped. If a new task was added, it will be started. If the command used for a task changed, or it was given a new environment definition file, or the logfile was changed, then the task is stopped and restarted with the new definition.