Date:        Thu, 17 Apr 2003 05:57:47 +0000 (UTC)
    From:        Mark Wild <markw@sdf.lonestar.org>
    Message-ID:  <Pine.NEB.4.33.0304170556130.14854-100000@otaku.freeshell.org>

  | I am trying to stop virecover starting when I boot up.

Why?

  | I found the virecover script in /etc/rc.d/, I thought a "virecover=NO" in
  | /etc/rc.conf would stop it, but it still runs.

The virecover script has no controlling variable, it simply runs.

If you really want to stop it, you could just remove the script from
rc.d - but the more common way is to create

	/etc/rc.conf.d/virecover

and in it put

	start_cmd=:

But again, why?

If you're not using vi, then the insignificant time virecover takes to
determine it has nothing to do is irrelevant.

If you are using vi, and the issue is the amount of mail that virecover
is sending you, then you really should be cleaning up the saved editing
sessions that it is telling you about.   Just ignoring them will cause
/var/tmp/vi.recover to just keep on getting bigger (which consumes space,
and slows down all future editing, as bigger directories take longer to
create new files).

Clean up the aborted editing sessions when you first get virecover
mail, and that mail will never come to you again.   That's the best
strategy.

So, why?

  | There is also something similar going on with sendmail, I set sendmail=NO
  | in /etc/rc.conf but it still tries to start, but not at every boot (which
  | is odd).

Something strange is happening there -  the sendmail daemon shouldn't
start if sendmail=NO - of course, other sendmail processes might get
run (for example, delivering that virecover mail...)

What does "tries to start" mean?

  | Is there a second mechanism for starting up programs at boot, other than
  | the rc system?

There's also cron, which can do that, and inetd can start stuff as well,
and of course, you can also add other methods.

kre