Corrected restart throttling documentation.

[nssm.git] / README.txt

diff --git a/README.txt b/README.txt
index 022e5ed..1bf8ab9 100644 (file)
--- a/README.txt
+++ b/README.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 NSSM: The Non-Sucking Service Manager\r
-Version 2.4, 2010-09-23\r
+Version 2.7, 2011-01-25\r
 \r
 NSSM is a service helper program similar to srvany and cygrunsrv.  It can \r
 start any application as an NT service and will restart the service if it \r
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ based on the exit code of the managed application.
 \r
 Since version 2.3, NSSM logs to the Windows event log more elegantly.\r
 \r
+Since version 2.5, NSSM respects environment variables in its parameters.\r
+\r
 \r
 Usage\r
 -----\r
@@ -66,12 +68,20 @@ action if/when the application dies.
 \r
 With no configuration from you, NSSM will try to restart itself if it notices\r
 that the application died but you didn't send it a stop signal.  NSSM will\r
-keep trying, pausing 30 seconds between each attempt, until the service is\r
-successfully started or you send it a stop signal.\r
+keep trying, pausing between each attempt, until the service is successfully\r
+started or you send it a stop signal.\r
+\r
+NSSM will pause an increasingly longer time between subsequent restart attempts\r
+if the service fails to start in a timely manner, up to a maximum of four\r
+minutes.  This is so it does not consume an excessive amount of CPU time trying\r
+to start a failed application over and over again.  If you identify the cause\r
+of the failure and don't want to wait you can use the Windows service console\r
+(where the service will be shown in Paused state) to send a continue signal to\r
+NSSM and it will retry within a few seconds.\r
 \r
 NSSM will look in the registry under\r
 HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\<service>\Parameters\AppExit for\r
-string (REG_SZ) values corresponding to the exit code of the application.\r
+string (REG_EXPAND_SZ) values corresponding to the exit code of the application.\r
 If the application exited with code 1, for instance, NSSM will look for a\r
 string value under AppExit called "1" or, if it does not find it, will\r
 fall back to the AppExit (Default) value.  You can find out the exit code\r
@@ -97,7 +107,10 @@ of Windows you should use "Suicide" instead.
 \r
 If the value data is "Suicide" NSSM will simulate a crash and exit without\r
 informing the service manager.  This option should only be used for\r
-pre-Vista systems where you wish to apply a service recovery action.\r
+pre-Vista systems where you wish to apply a service recovery action.  Note\r
+that if the monitored application exits with code 0, NSSM will only honour a\r
+request to suicide if you explicitly configure a registry key for exit code 0.\r
+If only the default action is set to Suicide NSSM will instead exit gracefully.\r
 \r
 \r
 Removing services using the GUI\r
@@ -153,6 +166,10 @@ Credits
 Thanks to Bernard Loh for finding a bug with service recovery.\r
 Thanks to Benjamin Mayrargue (www.softlion.com) for adding 64-bit support.\r
 Thanks to Joel Reingold for spotting a command line truncation bug.\r
+Thanks to Arve Knudsen for spotting that child processes of the monitored\r
+application could be left running on service shutdown, and that a missing\r
+registry value for AppDirectory confused NSSM.\r
+Thanks to Peter Wagemans and Laszlo Kereszt for suggesting throttling restarts.\r
 \r
 Licence\r
 -------\r