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From: Jonathan de Boyne Pollard <J.deBoynePollard-newsgroups@NTLWorld.com>
Subject: Re: syslogd(8) with OOM Killer protection
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Jan Bramkamp:
 > I would prefer to implement [a] flag keeping cron (and all other
 > base system daemons) from double-forking and run it under a
 > process supervisor like daemontools.


Ravi Pokala:
 > We've recently added that to `syslogd' (r279567, 2015-03-03).
 > I think we also have internal changes (not committed to -HEAD
 > yet) which adds a "run in foreground" option to a few other
 > daemons.

As I've noted:

* 
http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/unix-daemon-design-mistakes-to-avoid.html#ForegroundDoesNotImplyDebugging


This has been gradually going on for a decade, now.  It's not something 
new that we're only just getting.  Vixie cron (still determinedly 
"daemonizing" itself) is largely *not* representative of current 
practice, now.  It's not even representative of crons in particular.  
GNU cron has a -f flag.  Matt Dillon's dcron has a -f flag.  Thibault 
Godouet's fcron has a -f flag.  Bruce Guenter's bcron was designed from 
the start to be run under a service manager.

* http://untroubled.org./bcron/bcron.html
* http://www.jimpryor.net./linux/dcron.html
* http://fcron.free.fr./

My thanks (and I suspect that of a lot of other people) to those who are 
and have been, program by program, enabling us to be rid of all of the 
unnecessary forking.