creating a sysv script

[Craig White]

Trying to use relaydelay.pl from projects.puremagic.com (greylisting
milter for sendmail)

End result is a perl file... and I want to invoke it as a daemon -
detached from any terminal.

it appears that most of the sysv scripts use /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
to get a more sophisticated box of tools...

my problem is that my sysv script (called relay) hangs at the point
where it wants to  initlog -q -c /usr/local/sbin/relaydelay.pl    and
this obviously comes from the code in /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions. If I
kill the neverending process...everything is fine and the program is
launched BUT - it never detaches from the terminal. i.e.

#service relay start
then from another terminal (cuz this one never let's go)

#ps aux|grep relay
root     26576  0.0  0.1  2120  932 pts/4    S    00:28
0:00 /bin/sh /sbin/service relay start
root     26579  0.0  0.2  4456 1208 pts/4    S    00:28
0:00 /bin/sh /etc/init.d/relay start
root     26582  0.0  0.1  3784  676 pts/4    S    00:28   0:00 initlog -
q -c /usr/local/sbin/relaydelay.pl
root     26583  0.2  1.2 31004 6408 pts/4    S    00:28
0:00 /usr/bin/perl -w /usr/local/sbin/relaydelay.pl
root     26602  0.0  0.0  1620  472 pts/3    S    00:30   0:00 grep
relay

note that process is still listed in pts/4 (and I have switched to pts/3
cause pts/4 is otherwise occupied)

# kill 26582
# ps aux|grep relay
root     26583  0.1  1.2 31004 6412 pts/4    S    00:28
0:00 /usr/bin/perl -w /usr/local/sbin/relaydelay.pl
root     26613  0.0  0.0  1612  472 pts/3    S    00:32   0:00 grep
relay

I just want it to detach from the terminal (which is apparently the
entire point of /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

Can someone direct me on this as I don't get it.

The entire contents of /etc/rc.d/init.d/relay

#!/bin/sh
#
# chkconfig: - 98 28
# description: Starts and stops the Relay-Delay
#              #
# pidfile: /var/run/relaydelay.pid
# config:  /etc/mail/relaydelay.conf

# Source function library.
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

source /etc/sysconfig/network

# Check that networking is up.
[ ${NETWORKING} = "no" ] && exit 0

[ -x /root/relaydelay-0.04/relaydelay.pl ] || exit 1

RETVAL=0
prog="/usr/local/sbin/relaydelay.pl"
desc="Greylisting"

start() {
        echo -n $"Starting $desc ($prog): "
        daemon $prog
        RETVAL=$?
        echo
        [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/relaydelay
        return $RETVAL
}

stop() {
        echo -n $"Shutting down $desc ($prog): "
        killproc $prog
        RETVAL=$?
        echo
        [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/relaydelay
        return $RETVAL
}

restart() {
        stop
        start
}

reload() {
        echo -n $"Reloading relaydelay.conf file: "
        pkill relaydelay -HUP
        RETVAL=$?
        echo
        return $RETVAL
}

rhstatus() {
        status relaydelay
}

case "$1" in
  start)
        start
        ;;
  stop)
        stop
        ;;
  restart)
        restart
        ;;
  reload)
        reload
        ;;
  status)
        rhstatus
        ;;
  *)
        echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|reload|status}"
        exit 1
esac

exit $RETVAL

thanks - Craig