[Swan-dev] error message when not running?

[Paul Wouters]

I received this bug report, which I kind of agree with. But I'd like to
hear from others.

Paul

Description of problem:
On a system with RHEL 6.9 RC-1, when "service ipsec status" is invoked,
command prints an error message
  "whack: Pluto is not running (no "/var/run/pluto/pluto.ctl")" along
with the 'status' message.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): RHEL 6.9 RC-1

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible: Consistently on systems with RHEL 6.9 RC-1.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. On BL920s Gen8 system, install RHEL 6.9 RC-1.
2. Run "service ipsec status".
3. Message "whack: Pluto is not running (no "/var/run/pluto/pluto.ctl")"
gets printed along with the status message.

     # service ipsec status
     pluto is stopped
     whack: Pluto is not running (no "/var/run/pluto/pluto.ctl")

Actual results: An error/failure message too gets printed along with the
status message.


Expected results:
The output provided by the command should be a status value like
"running/operational" of the requested service and it should not contain
any failure messages such as mentioned above. Here, command states that
service is not running, but output is associated with an another message
which seems to be a failure message. This, I feel is not correct
behavior from the usability point of view.
In summary, when service itself is not running, why print an
error/failure message.

Additional info:

- This behavior is also seen when "service --status-all" is run.
- It seems this error message is coming form the "/etc/init.d/ipsec"
   script, when it invokes "/usr/libexec/ipsec/whack --status ".  This
can be verified by running whack command as below:

     # /usr/libexec/ipsec/whack --status
     whack: Pluto is not running (no "/var/run/pluto/pluto.ctl")

- This behavior can also be seen on latest RC2.