On 1: Looks like CentOS runs init script with `bash` by default, so I'll leave my (and Ask's) bashisms in for readability.
<pre>
[dev|mhcdiscoinferenceworker]$ ls -l /bin/sh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Dec  5 18:51 /bin/sh -> bash
</pre>