OCS Unix Agent runs in Daemon mode

[Scott Hannahs]

The OCS Unix agent version 2.0rc3 and previous versions run in "daemon" mode. This is something that is not supposed to be done by processes launched by the launchd system. The launchd system will take care of launching a process at periodic intervals, launching after sleep etc. The periodicity of running the OCS agent should be set in the launchd.plist file not within the forked daemon. This allows the system to manage processes effectively.

From the manual page for launchd.plist, to exectute a process periodically. The launchd.plist should have something like this included

        <key>StartInterval</key>
        <integer>7200</integer>

to start every 2 hours. But it also allows some of use to use the key "StartCalendarInterval" to force the inventory to only run at 3 AM or something to avoid running during necessary operation.

[mortheres (mortheres)]

Hi Scott,

Thanks a lot for you report. You are right, using the OCS agent in daemon mode is really weird because it's uses too much persistent memory. If the MacOSX launchd deamon could do it for us, it will be really better :) :).

We are currently updating,debugging and enhnacing the MacOSX part of the OCS Unix agent and your idea about using launchd daemon will help us and should be implemented.

We will give some news when the new MacOSX agent will be commited and released.

Kind regards,

Guillaume

[Scott Hannahs (shannahs)]

Hi Guillame,

If you need any help or testing let me know. I haven't been able to use version 2.0 yet due to Bug #750533. But I did do some hacking and some patches to the older 1.1 version of the agent awhile ago. I would like to get the 2.0 version running as soon as possible.

There was an old bug in Mac::SysProfile that I contacted the author about a glitch in the output on newer Macs. I don't think he has updated it yet.

[mortheres (mortheres)]

Hi,

The new Launchd integration using your proposal has been integrated in revision 1058 of the ocsinventory-unix-agent/stable-2.0 branch : http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ocsinventory-dev/ocsinventory-unix-agent/trunk/revision/1058.

It have been integrated in the new OCS MacOSX agent 2.0 beta1 release :) :).

Kind regards,

Guillaume