So what kind of warning do admins get from bitcoind? Is there something we can grep from debug.log? Or will rpc calls raise some specific error? Is there a way to locally force this to happen, for unittesting services?
getinfo has a new field that shows any alert messages or other errors that would be displayed on the status bar.The rpc methods return a json-rpc error with the error description "Safe mode: " followed by additional text specified by the alert.
I added the switch "-testsafemode" for you. SVN rev 145.
This stuff is very new and may still be subject to change.
I just discovered http://www.bitcoin.org/wiki/doku.php?id=man_page and don't see any reference to -disablesafemode. Perhaps it should be added! Also others liek -4way should be added as well.
Many switches are intentionally undocumented, like if their functionality is still under construction or I haven't settled on their name yet, or just test code not intended for release.-4way should eventually be replaced by an auto-detect.