start-stop-daemon man page on Hurd

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start-stop-daemon(8)		dpkg utilities		  start-stop-daemon(8)

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

SYNOPSIS
       start-stop-daemon [option...] command

DESCRIPTION
       start-stop-daemon  is  used  to control the creation and termination of
       system-level  processes.	  Using	  one	of   the   matching   options,
       start-stop-daemon  can  be  configured  to find existing instances of a
       running process.

       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 TERM signal (or the one
       specified  via --signal or --retry) if --stop is specified. For daemons
       which have long-lived children which need to live through a --stop, you
       must specify a pidfile.

COMMANDS
       -S, --start [--] arguments
	      Check  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  exe‐
	      cutable specified by --exec or, if specified, by --startas.  Any
	      arguments given after -- on the command line are passed  unmodi‐
	      fied to the program being started.

       -K, --stop
	      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	termi‐
	      nated.

       -T, --status
	      Check  for  the existence of a specified process, and returns an
	      exit status code, according to the LSB Init Script Actions.

       -H, --help
	      Show usage information and exit.

       -V, --version
	      Show the program version and exit.

OPTIONS
   Matching options
       --pid pid
	      Check for a process with the specified pid. The pid  must	 be  a
	      number greater than 0.

       -p, --pidfile pid-file
	      Check  whether  a	 process  has created the file pid-file. Note:
	      using this matching option alone	might  cause  unintended  pro‐
	      cesses  to  be  acted  on, if the old process terminated without
	      being able to remove the pid-file.

       -x, --exec executable
	      Check for processes that are instances of this  executable.  The
	      executable  argument  should be an absolute pathname. Note: this
	      might not work as intended with interpreted scripts, as the exe‐
	      cutable  will  point  to the interpreter. Take into account pro‐
	      cesses running from inside a chroot will	also  be  matched,  so
	      other match restrictions might be needed.

       -n, --name process-name
	      Check for processes with the name process-name. The process-name
	      is usually the process filename, but it could have been  changed
	      by the process itself. Note: on most systems this information is
	      retrieved from the process comm  name  from  the	kernel,	 which
	      tends  to	 have  a  relatively short length limit (assuming more
	      than 15 characters is non-portable).

       -u, --user username|uid
	      Check for processes owned by the user specified by  username  or
	      uid.  Note: using this matching option alone will cause all pro‐
	      cesses matching the user to be acted on.

   Generic options
       -g, --group group|gid
	      Change to group or gid when starting the process.

       -s, --signal signal
	      With --stop, specifies the signal to  send  to  processes	 being
	      stopped (default TERM).

       -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 speci‐
	      fied, 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 mes‐
	      sages.

       -c, --chuid username|uid[:group|gid]
	      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).
	      If a user is specified without a group, the primary GID for that
	      user is used.  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 start‐
	      ing 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 themselves.

       -C, --no-close
	      Do  not  close  any file descriptor when forcing the daemon into
	      the background.  Used for debugging purposes to see the  process
	      output,  or to redirect file descriptors to log the process out‐
	      put.  Only relevant when using --background.

       -N, --nicelevel int
	      This alters the priority of the process before starting it.

       -P, --procsched policy:priority
	      This alters the process scheduler policy	and  priority  of  the
	      process before starting it. The priority can be optionally spec‐
	      ified by appending a : followed by the value. The default prior‐
	      ity  is 0. The currently supported policy values are other, fifo
	      and rr.

       -I, --iosched class:priority
	      This alters the IO scheduler class and priority of  the  process
	      before  starting it. The priority can be optionally specified by
	      appending a : followed by the value. The default priority is  4,
	      unless  class  is idle, then priority will always be 7. The cur‐
	      rently supported values for  class  are  idle,  best-effort  and
	      real-time.

       -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.

EXIT STATUS
       0      The requested action was performed. If --oknodo  was  specified,
	      it's also possible that nothing had to be done.  This can happen
	      when --start was specified and a matching	 process  was  already
	      running, or when --stop was specified and there were no matching
	      processes.

       1      If --oknodo was not specified and nothing was done.

       2      If --stop and --retry were specified, but the end of the	sched‐
	      ule was reached and the processes were still running.

       3      Any other error.

       When  using  the	 --status  command,  the  following  status  codes are
       returned:

       0      Program is running.

       1      Program is not running and the pid file exists.

       3      Program is not running.

       4      Unable to determine program status.

EXAMPLE
       Start the food daemon, unless one is already running (a	process	 named
       food, running as user food, with pid in food.pid):

	      start-stop-daemon --start --oknodo --user food --name food \
		   --pidfile /run/food.pid --startas /usr/sbin/food \
		   --chuid food -- --daemon

       Send SIGTERM to food and wait up to 5 seconds for it to stop:

	      start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --user food --name food \
		   --pidfile /run/food.pid --retry 5

       Demonstration of a custom schedule for stopping food:

	      start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --user food --name food \
		   --pidfile /run/food.pid --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5

Debian Project			  2013-12-14		  start-stop-daemon(8)
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