lighttpd reload executes restart (bad on logrotate!)

This is related ... somehow ;)

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=504319

I think the right thing to do is changing the init script to actually perform a "reload" when reload is called. restart or force-reload stay the same, reload checks if lighttpd is running, and only performs the restart if it is

  reload)
        log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC configuration" $NAME
        if [ ! -e $PIDFILE ]; then
                log_daemon_msg "$DESC not running, not doing anything" $NAME
                log_end_msg 0
        else
                if $SSD --stop --signal 2 --oknodo --retry 30\
                --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON; then
                        if $ENV $SSD --start --quiet \
                        --pidfile $PIDFILE --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS ; then
                        log_end_msg 0
                        else
                        log_end_msg 1
                        fi
                else
                        log_end_msg 1
                fi
        fi

I'm sorry, but starting potentially harmful software like a webserver with a buggy webpage without the administrator knowing it (who would expect that a service that got shutdown manually just appears again?) should really not be a "low" priority, especially since it's easy to fix...

imho this is an absolut no-go for server software and should be fixed in all release asap (even if up until now nobody noticed or cared to report about it)

This is a packaging issue and an issue of how standards are met. I can be wrong, but "reload" isn't supposed to start a service, is it?

Thanks for upping the priority ...

I just tried it, and this also happens if lighty is not automatically started in a runlevel. It just starts (or at least tries to start) at 22 minutes after the full hour (logrotate) - this may even be an upstream bug, i guess it's the same in debian (don't have any debian installed right now to test)

sorry - it tries that once a day (daily logrotate), i just changed my logrotating to be hourly because of logfile size restrictions.

I could not find any documentation, if "reload" should start a not already running service.
("9.3.2 Writing the scripts" in the Debian Policy Manual (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html) talks about this)

However, Apache does the same (via "apache2ctl graceful"):
$ sudo apache2ctl graceful
httpd not running, trying to start

But, apache2's logrotate script checks if it is running:
        postrotate
                if [ -f "`. /etc/apache2/envvars ; echo ${APACHE_PID_FILE:-/var/run/apache2.pid}`" ]; then
                        /etc/init.d/apache2 reload > /dev/null
                fi
        endscript

I think the same should get done for lighttpd's logrotate script, too.
I'm adding an apache2 task.

Apache appears to remove its pidfile on shutdown, and therefore the "pidfile exists" test works for checking if it is running.

For lighttpd, we could manually remove the pidfile in the init script's "stop" action!?

This bug was fixed in the package lighttpd - 1.4.22-1ubuntu3

---------------
lighttpd (1.4.22-1ubuntu3) karmic; urgency=low

  * debian/lighttpd.logrotate: check if lighttpd is running, before
    calling reload, which would start the daemon if it is not running
    currently (LP: #393792)

 -- Daniel Hahler <email address hidden> Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:05:29 +0200

To get this fix into released branches (e.g. "Hardy"), please refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SRU