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.\" Written by Eric L. Pederson <eric@bofh.org.uk> for the
.\" entertainment of the denizens of alt.sysadmin.recovery
.TH PMSD 8 "25 March 1996"
.SH NAME
pmsd \- Periodically Manic System Daemon. Manages the bizzare and sometimes
unexplainable behavior exhibited by computers.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B pmsd [\-bcfmp]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.LP
.B pmsd
is a rogue daemon that is spawned on a semi-regular schedule by init(8).
Most of the unusual and quirky behavior associated with misbehaving
computers can be attributed to pmsd.
.LP
pmsd has a number of command-line options, invoked at run-time by init(8).
The ps(1) command will occasionally display the current options, but only
if pmsd feels like revealing them. This is usually not the case. pmsd can
be manually invoked by the pms(8) command. Make sure there is not a pmsd
process already running when you use pms(8); you don't want to be on a system
with multiple instances of pmsd running.
.LP
With no flags,
.B pmsd
runs with the default -m option, and any others it feels like using.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-b
Bloat. Files randomly grow in size, filling up filesystems and causing
quotas to be exceeded.
.TP
.B \-c
Craving. System becomes hungry, eating magnetic tapes, CD-ROM discs, floppies,
and anything else a hapless user loads into a removable media drive.
.TP
.B \-f
Fatigue. System will pause for a random period of time. It is important to
leave the system alone during this time. Attempts to coax the machine into
normal operation could cause the spontaneous activation of all command-line
switches. This is to be avoided.
.TP
.B \-m
Mood swings. Process priorities and nice values are altered randomly. Swapping
usually occurs with no warning, even when memory is available. This is the
default behavior.
.TP
.B \-p
Peeved. One or more users are selected as targets of the system's anger.
Files are deleted, e-mail copied to /etc/motd, and any Usenet articles posted
by the targets are crossposted to misc.test and alt.flame.
.SH NOTES
When pmsd is invoked by using the pms(8) command, pmsd ignores any
command-line switches and does what it damned well pleases.
.SH SEE ALSO
pms(8)
.SH BUGS
There are no bugs; how could you ask that?
.SH HISTORY
Written by Eric L. Pederson <eric@bofh.org.uk>.
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