Thanks for your help. If my script determines that N1GE's qmaster is unavailable, is there a way for me to tell SMF that I'm not really running, but in offline or maintenance state? And which state is appropriate? can my script svcadm mark offline $MY_FMRI and then if I notice the qmaster responding svcadm mark online $MY_FMRI My experimentation says that neither of these does what I want: which is to enable the user of 'svcs' to determine that my script is trying to start, but cannot yet (for a reason outside of SMF).
Also, is my script invoked with an environment variable giving my FMRI? And while I have your attention, can I define my own methods in my XML file and exec script?