service(8)                           System Manager's Manual                           service(8)



NAME
       service - run a System V init script


SYNOPSIS
       service SCRIPT COMMAND [OPTIONS]

       service --status-all

       service --help | -h | --version


DESCRIPTION
       service  runs  a  System  V init script or upstart job in as predictable an environment as
       possible, removing most environment variables and with the current working  directory  set
       to /.

       The  SCRIPT  parameter specifies a System V init script, located in /etc/init.d/SCRIPT, or
       the name of an upstart job in /etc/init. The existence of an upstart job of the same  name
       as  a  script in /etc/init.d will cause the upstart job to take precedence over the init.d
       script.  The supported values of COMMAND depend on the  invoked  script.   service  passes
       COMMAND  and OPTIONS to the init script unmodified. For upstart jobs, start, stop, status,
       and reload are passed through to their upstart equivalents. Restart will call the  upstart
       'stop'  for  the  job,  followed immediately by the 'start', and will exit with the return
       code of the start command.

       All scripts should support at least the start and stop commands.  As a  special  case,  if
       COMMAND is --full-restart, the script is run twice, first with the stop command, then with
       the start command. This option has no effect on upstart jobs.

       service --status-all runs all init scripts, in alphabetical order, with  the  status  com‐
       mand.   The status is [ + ] for running services, [ - ] for stopped services and [ ? ] for
       services without a 'status' command.  This option only calls  status  for  sysvinit  jobs;
       upstart jobs can be queried in a similar manner with initctl list.


EXIT CODES
       service calls the init script and returns the status returned by it.


FILES
       /etc/init.d
              The directory containing System V init scripts.

       /etc/init
              The directory containing upstart jobs.


ENVIRONMENT
       LANG,  LANGUAGE,  LC_CTYPE,  LC_NUMERIC,  LC_TIME,  LC_COLLATE,  LC_MONETARY, LC_MESSAGES,
       LC_PAPER, LC_NAME, LC_ADDRESS, LC_TELEPHONE,  LC_MEASUREMENT,  LC_IDENTIFICATION,  LC_ALL,
       TERM
              The only environment variables passed to the init scripts.


SEE ALSO
       /etc/init.d/skeleton,
       update-rc.d(8),
       init(8),
       invoke-rc.d(8).
       initctl(8).



                                             Jan 2006                                  service(8)