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From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Re: Daemonizing question...
Keywords: daemon, open
Message-ID: <6276@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 25 Feb 91 22:37:18 GMT
References: <12459@helios.TAMU.EDU> <12497@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 13

>Apparently when the daemonizing code was written "/dev/null" (a more
>likely candidate) was not gauranteed to exist under all flavors of
>Unix (may still not for all I know ;-).

It's not *guaranteed* to exist under *any* flavor of UNIX; somebody
could have removed it, for example (see "comp.unix.aix", I think, for an
example of a system bug that blows it away).

It's *likely* to exist under all flavors of UNIX, including 4.xBSD,
whence that daemonizing code came. 

You may or may not care whether your daemon can cope with "/dev/null"
being missing or unopenable.


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