Init Script Actions

Init files should accept one argument, saying what to do:

start	start the service
stop	stop the service
restart	stop and restart the service if the service is already running, otherwise start the service
reload	cause the configuration of the service to be reloaded without actually stopping and restarting the service
force-reload	cause the configuration to be reloaded if the service supports this, otherwise restart the service
status	print the current status of the service

The start, stop, restart, force-reload, and status options must be supported by all init files, the reload option is optional.

Init files should ensure that they will behave sensibly if invoked with start when the service is already running, or with stop when it isn't, and that they don't kill unfortunately-named user processes. The best way to achieve this is usually to use start-stop-daemon [1] .

If a service reloads its configuration automatically (as in the case of cron, for example), the reload option of the init file should behave as if the configuration has been reloaded successfully.

These executable files should not fail obscurely when the configuration files remain but the package has been removed, as the default in [the packaging system] is to leave configuration files on the system after the package has been removed. Only when it is executed with the [purge] option will [the packaging system] remove configuration files. Therefore, you should include a test statement at the top of the file, like this:

test -f program-executed-later-in-file || exit 5

or take the equivalent action if the init file is not a shell script.

Init files should return an exit status of zero if the action described by the argument has been successful. Otherwise, the exit status should be non-zero. In addition to straightforward success, the following situations are also to be considered successful:

• restarting a service (instead of reloading it) with the "force-reload" argument

• running "start" on a service already running

• running "stop" on a service already stopped or not running

• running "restart" on a service already stopped or not running

Exit status for "status" command:

0	program is running
1	program is dead and /var/run pid file exists
2	program is dead and /var/lock lock file exists
3	program is stopped
4-100	reserved for future LSB use
100-149	reserved for distribution use
150-199	reserved for application use
200-254	reserved

Exit status for "start", "stop", "restart", "reload", and "force-reload":

In error conditions, the init file should fail, print an error, and return one of the following non-zero exit status codes.

1	generic or unspecified error (current practice)
2	invalid or excess argument(s)
3	unimplemented feature (for example, "reload")
4	user had insufficient privilege
5	program is not installed
6	program is not configured
7	program is not running
8-100	reserved for future LSB use
100-149	reserved for distribution use
150-199	reserved for application use
200-254	reserved

All error messages should be printed on standard error. All status messages should be printed on standard output.

Since init files may be run manually by a system administrator with non-standard environment variable values for PATH, USER, LOGNAME, etc. init files should not depend on the values of these environment variables. They should set them to some known/default values if they are needed.