Just creating a script in /etc/rc.d/ somewhere is not enough. The runlevel startup script that calls the individual startup scripts, calls them in the foreground. So, if the startup script does not fork and exit, the bootprocess will hang forever.

Having the script fork itself, is one solution. Creating a startup script that calls your script in the background, with an '&', is another. There are probably a lot of simple startup scripts in your /etc/rc.d/* already, check them out. One note though: Linux, and RedHat in particular, uses a shell function 'daemon' instead of running the binary directly with an '&'.