Clarify what "sensible behaviour" is for init scripts

Clarify that sensible behavior for start includes not starting
another daemon and exiting successfully when the daemon is already
running.

Closes: #426877

diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index c9bd84f23d9057d7825af62d195a88cf7866ff46..24c90727e276c2d748c889ed17679a326f08693f 100644 (file)
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -5944,11 +5944,13 @@ rmdir /usr/local/share/emacs 2>/dev/null || true
 
          <p>
            The <file>init.d</file> scripts must ensure that they will
-           behave sensibly if invoked with <tt>start</tt> when the
-           service is already running, or with <tt>stop</tt> when it
-           isn't, and that they don't kill unfortunately-named user
-           processes.  The best way to achieve this is usually to use
-           <prgn>start-stop-daemon</prgn>.
+           behave sensibly (i.e., returning success and not starting
+           multiple copies of a service) if invoked with <tt>start</tt>
+           when the service is already running, or with <tt>stop</tt>
+           when it isn't, and that they don't kill unfortunately-named
+           user processes.  The best way to achieve this is usually to
+           use <prgn>start-stop-daemon</prgn> with the <tt>--oknodo</tt>
+           option.
          </p>
 
          <p>