>>>>> "GT" == dopp  <dopp at acm.cs.umn.edu> writes:

    >>  Yes, that's my problem, too.  I don't know what kind of script
    >> it is, either.  It's a script used by logrotate, if that helps.
    >> Unfortunately, the man page only says:
    >> 
    GT> What's the name of the script and where is it?

One example is /etc/logrotate.d/samba

I think probably the right thing to do is to change this:

/var/log/samba/log.smb {
    postrotate
	/usr/bin/killall -HUP smbd
    endscript
}

to something like

/var/log/samba/log.smb {
    postrotate
	if { ps -C smbd -o pid= > /dev/null } then /usr/bin/killall -HUP smbd; fi
    endscript
}

per your suggestion, but I haven't yet had a chance to test it out....

R