During initialization

Put the command in /etc/rc to start the daemon automatically during initialization. For information about starting programs from /etc/rc, see Customizing /etc/rc.

When UNIX systems are initialized (IPLed or restarted), the /etc/rc shell script is run to perform system initialization functions and to start daemons. If a daemon terminates, a superuser must restart the daemon.

Tip: You can use /etc/inittab instead of /etc/rc to start daemons.

The following explanation uses the syslogd daemon (which supplies logging functions for programs) as an example of a daemon. Similar steps are required for other daemons.

syslogd is typically started from /etc/rc.

Example: The _BPX_JOBNAME environment variable is set to assign a job name of SYSLOGD to the syslogd daemon. The operator will then have better control over managing the syslogd daemon.

_BPX_JOBNAME='SYSLOGD' /usr/sbin/syslogd -f /etc/syslog.conf &

When /etc/rc is started by /etc/init or /usr/sbin/init, stdin is /dev/null and both stdout and stderr are open to the /etc/log file. The /etc/rc script then invokes the requisite daemons with these files, as such. If the syslogd process fails, you could re-IPL, but this would be very disruptive to the users.