Manpage: start-stop-daemon

start-stop-daemon

Section: dpkg utilities (8)

Updated: 2006-02-28

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NAME

start-stop-daemon - start and stop system daemon programs

SYNOPSIS

start-stop-daemon

-S|--start

options

[--]

arguments

start-stop-daemon

-K|--stop

options

start-stop-daemon

-H|--help

start-stop-daemon

-V|--version

DESCRIPTION

start-stop-daemon

is used to control the creation and termination of system-level processes.

Using the

--exec, --pidfile, --user, and
--name options,

start-stop-daemon

can be configured to find existing instances of a running process.

With

--start,

start-stop-daemon

checks for the existence of a specified process.

If such a process exists,

start-stop-daemon

does nothing, and exits with error status 1 (0 if

--oknodo

is specified).

If such a process does not exist, it starts an

instance, using either the executable specified by

--exec,

(or, if specified, by

--startas).

Any arguments given after

--

on the command line are passed unmodified to the program being

started.

With

--stop,

start-stop-daemon

also checks for the existence of a specified process.

If such a process exists,

start-stop-daemon

sends it the signal specified by

--signal,

and exits with error status 0.

If such a process does not exist,

start-stop-daemon

exits with error status 1

(0 if

--oknodo

is specified). If

--retry

is specified then

start-stop-daemon

will check that the process(es) have terminated.

Note: unless

--pidfile

is specified,

start-stop-daemon

behaves similar to



killall

(1).

start-stop-daemon

will scan the process table looking for any processes which

match the process name, uid, and/or gid (if specified). Any

matching process will prevent

--start

from starting the daemon. All matching processes will be

sent the KILL signal if

--stop

is specified. For daemons which have long-lived children

which need to live through a

--stop

you must specify a pidfile.

OPTIONS

-x|--exec executable

Check for processes that are instances of this executable (according to

/proc/pid/exe).

-p|--pidfile pid-file

Check whether a process has created the file

pid-file.

-u|--user username|uid

Check for processes owned by the user specified by

username

or

uid.

-g|--group group|gid

Change to group or gid when starting the process.

-n|--name process-name

Check for processes with the name

process-name

(according to

/proc/pid/stat).

-s|--signal signal

With

--stop,

specifies the signal to send to processes being stopped (default 15).

-R|--retry timeout|schedule

With

--stop,

specifies that

start-stop-daemon

is to check whether the process(es)

do finish. It will check repeatedly whether any matching processes

are running, until none are. If the processes do not exit it will

then take further action as determined by the schedule.

If

timeout

is specified instead of

schedule

then the schedule

signal/timeout/KILL/timeout

is used, where

signal

is the signal specified with

--signal.

schedule

is a list of at least two items separated by slashes

(/);

each item may be

-signal-number

or [-]signal-name,

which means to send that signal,

or

timeout,

which means to wait that many seconds for processes to

exit,

or

forever,

which means to repeat the rest of the schedule forever if

necessary.

If the end of the schedule is reached and

forever

is not specified, then

start-stop-daemon

exits with error status 2.

If a schedule is specified, then any signal specified

with

--signal

is ignored.

-a|--startas pathname

With

--start,

start the process specified by

pathname.

If not specified, defaults to the argument given to

--exec.

-t|--test

Print actions that would be taken and set appropriate return value,

but take no action.

-o|--oknodo

Return exit status 0 instead of 1 if no actions are (would be) taken.

-q|--quiet

Do not print informational messages; only display error messages.

-c|--chuid username|uid

Change to this username/uid before starting the process. You can also

specify a group by appending a

:,

then the group or gid in the same way

as you would for the `chown’ command (user:group).

When using this option

you must realize that the primary and supplemental groups are set as well,

even if the

--group

option is not specified. The

--group

option is only for

groups that the user isn’t normally a member of (like adding per process

group membership for generic users like

nobody).

-r|--chroot root

Chdir and chroot to

root

before starting the process. Please note that the pidfile is also written

after the chroot.

-d|--chdir path

Chdir to

path

before starting the process. This is done after the chroot if the

-r|--chroot option is set. When not specified,

start-stop-daemon will chdir to the root directory before starting

the process.

-b|--background

Typically used with programs that don’t detach on their own. This option

will force

start-stop-daemon

to fork before starting the process, and force it into the background.

WARNING: start-stop-daemon

cannot check the exit status if the process fails to execute for

any

reason. This is a last resort, and is only meant for programs that either

make no sense forking on their own, or where it’s not feasible to add the

code for them to do this themself.

-N|--nicelevel int

This alters the priority of the process before starting it.

-k|--umask mask

This sets the umask of the process before starting it.

-m|--make-pidfile

Used when starting a program that does not create its own pid file. This

option will make

start-stop-daemon

create the file referenced with

--pidfile

and place the pid into it just before executing the process. Note, the

file will not be removed when stopping the program.

NOTE:

This feature may not work in all cases. Most notably when the program

being executed forks from its main process. Because of this it is usually

only useful when combined with the

--background

option.

-v|--verbose

Print verbose informational messages.

-H|--help

Print help information; then exit.

-V|--version

Print version information; then exit.

AUTHORS

Marek Michalkiewicz based on

a previous version by Ian Jackson .

Manual page by Klee Dienes , partially reformatted

by Ian Jackson.