Package: hostapd
Version: 2.4-1+deb9u3
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/wpa/blob/debian/2%252.4-1+deb9u2/debian/hostapd.init
log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
start-stop-daemon --start --oknodo --quiet --exec "$DAEMON_SBIN" \
--pidfile "$PIDFILE" -- $DAEMON_OPTS >/dev/null
log_end_msg "$?"
I.e. it fails to pass on the exit status from start-stop-daemon. As a
result, *** when this specific version of hostapd is used with systemd
*** , "[ ok ]" is shown even if hostapd failed :
> # /etc/init.d/hostapd start
> [ ok ] Starting hostapd (via systemctl): hostapd.service.
> ...
> The error in journalctl -b -u hostapd is:
> Starting advanced IEEE 802.11 management: hostapd failed!
The above is taken from the user report / support request at
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/518466/hostapd-hotspot-not-running
In Debian buster, this problem with systemd will be entirely solved,
because we now have hostapd.service, a native systemd service. Yay!
However there is still this bug in the init script. Other init
systems are available. These may rely on the old-style init.d scripts,
and may or may not give similarly confusing results. So it would
still be nice to fix this bug.
I searched for a standard template for a Debian init script. It turns
out /etc/init.d/skeleton went away, because simple scripts should now
be written using `init-d-script` . There is a man page for it. The
current man page is missing a lot of critical information, e.g.
forgets to mention how to pass arguments to the daemon :-( . The
answers are in the source code, e.g. you can set DAEMON_ARGS.
The hack with "sleep 8" should be easy to re-create if necessary by
defining do_restart_override() and do_force_reload_override() . I
guess that you are still finding it necessary, seeing as you have
defined RestartSec=2 in the systemd service.
source code link:
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/sysvinit/commit/fbf700964e86953d2c573229c39482db0b9e1eb7
---
There's a similar example showing how this init script incorrectly
shows "active" instead of "failed" in "systemctl status" :
https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/1117 :
# service hostapd status
hostapd.service - LSB: Advanced IEEE 802.11 management daemon
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/hostapd; generated; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (exited) since Wed 2019-02-27 21:05:29 UTC; 3s ago
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
Process: 2177 ExecStop=/etc/init.d/hostapd stop (code=exited,
status=0/SUCCESS)
Process: 2212 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/hostapd start (code=exited,
status=0/SUCCESS)
Feb 27 21:05:29 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Advanced IEEE
802.11 management daemon...
Feb 27 21:05:29 xxxxxxxx hostapd[2212]: Starting advanced IEEE
802.11 management: hostapd failed!
Feb 27 21:05:29 xxxxxxxx systemd[1]: Started LSB: Advanced IEEE
802.11 management daemon.
