distinguish start-the-service from service-specific tools

[jonassmedegaard]

The command-line application atomic-server is mainly a daemon: When executed without options, it opens a port for an Atomic Server, without exiting to the shell.

Samme application also contains service house-keeping functionalities, e.g. to reset admin password.
It is confusing, however, that atomic-server --initialize does not only do what is documented but also starts a daemon.
My expectation is that when requesting a functional option then that function is executed instead of the default of running as a service.
An alternative (and my earlier expectation) would be to provide a separate command-line for non-service-starting functions.

Or rephrased: Seems impossible to e.g. reset password without starting service.

[jonassmedegaard]

See here for a concrete example of how cludgy the current interface becomes.

...or maybe I am simply missing some elegant different usage pattern?

[joepio]

Hmm, I see your point. If --initialize is changed with initialize, and it quits after performing the initialization, would that suffice? You'd still need to shut off the service, though, I need to run the script when actually initializing the server.

It would probably become:

    sudo service atomic-server stop
    sudo -u _atomic atomic-server initialize
    sudo service atomic-server start

Is that a significant improvement?