.\" $Ringlet: perl/sys/stalepid/stalepid.1,v 1.2 2003/12/04 14:09:09 roam Exp $
.\"
.Dd December 4, 2003
.Dt STALEPID 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm stalepid
.Nd check for and remove stale process ID files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl 5bdhV
.Ar pidfile
.Ar processname
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility was developed to facilitate the startup of servers that write their
process ID to a file and refuse to start if that file exists (e.g. when the
process was last terminated by an unclean shutdown, or simply killed
without given the chance to clean up the process ID file).
The
.Nm
utility is used to check for and possibly remove those stale process ID files.
Upon its invocation,
.Nm
checks for the following conditions:
.Pp
.Bl -dash
.It
the file specified by the
.Ar pidfile
argument exists;
.It
it contains a single line, and the line contains a single number;
.It
there is
.Em no
process with the process ID specified in the file, or if there
is one, it is
.Em not
named
.Ar processname .
.El
.Pp
If all those conditions are met, the
.Nm
utility will remove the file specified by the
.Ar pidfile
argument, thus allowing the next invocation of the server to proceed
normally.
.Pp
The following options are available:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl 5
Invoke the
.Xr ps 1
utility using System V syntax instead of BSD
.Xr ps 1
syntax (not implemented yet).
.It Fl b
Invoke the
.Xr ps 1
utility using BSD syntax (the default behavior).
.It Fl d
Display diagnostic information during the course of operation.
.It Fl h
Display a short help message and exit.
.It Fl V
Display program version information and exit.
.El
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
Not taken in consideration in the present version.
.Sh FILES
None relevant in the present version.
.Sh BUGS
Support for System V
.Xr ps 1
syntax via the
.Fl 5
flag is not implemented yet.
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
was developed by
.An Peter Pentchev
in 2003.
.Sh AUTHORS
.An Peter Pentchev Aq roam@ringlet.net .