HOBBITLAUNCH(8) 					      System Manager's Manual						   HOBBITLAUNCH(8)

NAME

       hobbitlaunch - Master program to launch other Xymon programs

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 - hob-
       bitlaunch 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 hobbit-
	      launch. 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  fore-
	      ground.

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	configura-
       tion, 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.

SEE ALSO

       hobbitlaunch.cfg(5), xymon(7)

Xymon							    Version 4.2.3:  4 Feb 2009						   HOBBITLAUNCH(8)