start-stop-daemon man page on ElementaryOS

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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
       -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			  2012-06-17		  start-stop-daemon(8)
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