Handling of service-spawned processes

Question

I have created a service. Here is its manifest:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1">
<service_bundle type='manifest' name='MYpackage:my_service'>
<service
    name='application/my_service'
    type='service'
    version='1'>
    <create_default_instance enabled='true' />
    <single_instance />
    <dependency
        name='multi-user'
        type='service'
        grouping='require_all'
        restart_on='none'>
        <service_fmri value='svc:/milestone/multi-user:default' />
    </dependency>
    <dependent
        name='multi-user-server'
        grouping='exclude_all'
        restart_on='none'>
        <service_fmri value="svc:/milestone/multi-user-server:default"/>
    </dependent>
<exec_method
        type='method'
        name='start'
        exec='/usr/bin/my_service --start'
        timeout_seconds='60'
    />
    <exec_method
        type='method'
        name='stop'
        exec='/usr/bin/my_service --stop'
        timeout_seconds='60'
    />
    <property_group name='startd' type='framework'>
        <propval name='ignore_error' type='astring' value='core,signal' />
    </property_group>
<stability value='Unstable' />
    <template>
        <common_name>
            <loctext xml:lang='C'>
                GAS Install agent for installing an application zone.
            </loctext>
        </common_name>
        <documentation>
        </documentation>
    </template>
</service>
</service_bundle>/usr/bin/my_service is a Perl script. It executes a shell script which in turn starts some processes, installs packages whose postinstall scripts start more processes. After several minutes the Perl script ends, the shell script ends as well, but a few processes are left. When I issue "init 6", svc.startd starts to disable services but when it's my service's turn to be stopped, svc.startd does not run its stop method, instead it waits for all of the processes that were left by the service to quit. Only when I kill the processes manually, svc.startd disables my service and the rest of services, then the system reboots.
Is it a coincidence that before svc.startd stops my service it waits for all processes that the service started? Why it expects that the processes will quit before the service is disabled? Why does it wait for the processes at all instead of just stopping all services and then killing all left-over processes?
EDIT: I did an experiment. I modified /usr/bin/my_service not to execute anything else but just sleep forever. After doing "init 6" svc.startd again paused before disabling my service. Manual "svcadm disable my_service" (which just kills a saved PID of my service) helped. Now I'm really confused... Please help.
Edited by: swiergot on Jun 17, 2008 2:25 AM

Answer 1

Wish I had a better answer for you. Telling you something that you already know, but if you've defined the Global's property with "Has instance access" then you can catch the exceptions in the process.
Undoubtedly though, you've got a standalone Global or you would not be asking the question. The exception from a Global that does not have instance access can't get caught in the process because there was never an instance created for it inside the process.