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<p dir="auto">Hi,</p>
<p dir="auto">I’m interested what users are actually doing in practise - are you<br>
letting MRTG pick up config changes, or forcing a restart on update?</p>
<p dir="auto">(Am particularly interested in those running Debian/Ubuntu).</p>
<p dir="auto">The IXP Manager documentation states:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left:2px solid #777; color:#777; margin:0 0 5px; padding-left:5px">
<p dir="auto">The above assumes that MRTG automatically reconfigures itself when<br>
the configuration changes as stated in the MRTG documentation for<br>
RunAsDaemon. We have seen inconsistent behaviors for this and<br>
if it does not work for you, you will need to add a step to<br>
restart the MRTG daemon to the reconfiguration script above<br>
(at the very end).</p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="auto">But the MRTG documentation contradicts itself:</p>
<blockquote style="border-left:2px solid #777; color:#777; margin:0 0 5px; padding-left:5px">
<p dir="auto">Also note that in daemon mode restarting the process is required<br>
in order to activate changes in the config file.</p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="auto">… but later ..</p>
<blockquote style="border-left:2px solid #777; color:#777; margin:0 0 5px; padding-left:5px">
<p dir="auto">If the modification date on the configuration file changes<br>
during operation, then MRTG will re-read the configuration on<br>
the next polling cycle.</p>
</blockquote>
<p dir="auto">I’ve implemented a forced restart on config updates, using<br>
systemd path units (running on Debian) as my initial thought<br>
was that it wouldn’t harm to make sure it was loading changes.</p>
<p dir="auto">But now I’m wondering what happens if MRTG gets restarted in the<br>
middle of a polling…</p>
<ul>
<li><p dir="auto">can you end up with corrupt data because it’s written half<br>
the run and then got stopped?</p></li>
<li><p dir="auto">does it cause anything visual on the graph as one of the 5<br>
minute intervals is missing?</p></li>
<li><p dir="auto">or does it do the right thing on restart and detect that<br>
the last run was interrupted and repeat/finish?</p></li>
</ul>
<p dir="auto">I’m now wondering whether it really is better to run it as a<br>
deamon, over cron? - obviously running it as a daemon you<br>
don’t have to start up and parse the config on each run, but<br>
the benefit with cron is you get a guaranteed run every 5<br>
mins, with it automatically using the latest config - so there<br>
are no problems of config loading or daemon dying to deal with.</p>
<p dir="auto">Is there a big benefit to running as a daemon?</p>
<p dir="auto">Thanks,</p>
<p dir="auto">Ian</p>
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