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start-stop-daemon(8)              dpkg suite              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 --pid or --pidfile are 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, parent
       pid, 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 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.

       -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 terminated.

       -T, --status
           Check for the existence of a specified process, and returns an exit
           status code, according to the LSB Init Script Actions (since
           version 1.16.1).

       -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 (since version 1.17.6).
           The pid must be a number greater than 0.

       --ppid ppid
           Check for a process with the specified parent pid ppid (since
           version 1.17.7).  The ppid must be a number greater than 0.

       -p, --pidfile pidfile
           Check whether a process has created the file pidfile.

           Note: Using this matching option alone might cause unintended
           processes to be acted on, if the old process terminated without
           being able to remove the pidfile.

           Warning: Using this match option with a world-writable pidfile or
           using it alone with a daemon that writes the pidfile as an
           unprivileged (non-root) user will be refused with an error (since
           version 1.19.3) as this is a security risk, because either any user
           can write to it, or if the daemon gets compromised, the contents of
           the pidfile cannot be trusted, and then a privileged runner (such
           as an init script executed as root) would end up acting on any
           system process.  Using /dev/null is exempt from these checks.

       -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 executable will point to the interpreter. Take into account
           processes 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 processes
           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 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[: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(1) 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
           Change directory and chroot to root before starting the process.
           Please note that the pidfile is also written after the chroot.

       -d, --chdir path
           Change directory 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 change directory 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 themselves.

       --notify-await
           Wait for the background process to send a readiness notification
           before considering the service started (since version 1.19.3).
           This implements parts of the systemd readiness protocol, as
           specified in the sd_notify(3) man page.  The following variables
           are supported:

           READY=1
               The program is ready to give service, so we can exit safely.

           EXTEND_TIMEOUT_USEC=number
               The program requests to extend the timeout by number
               microseconds.  This will reset the current timeout to the
               specified value.

           ERRNO=number
               The program is exiting with an error.  Do the same and print
               the user-friendly string for the errno value.

       --notify-timeout timeout
           Set a timeout for the --notify-await option (since version 1.19.3).
           When the timeout is reached, start-stop-daemon will exit with an
           error code, and no readiness notification will be awaited.  The
           default is 60 seconds.

       -C, --no-close
           Do not close any file descriptor when forcing the daemon into the
           background (since version 1.16.5).  Used for debugging purposes to
           see the process output, or to redirect file descriptors to log the
           process output.  Only relevant when using --background.

       -O, --output pathname
           Redirect stdout and stderr to pathname when forcing the daemon into
           the background (since version 1.20.6).  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 (since version 1.15.0).  The priority
           can be optionally specified by appending a : followed by the value.
           The default priority is 0. The currently supported policy values
           are other, fifo and rr.

           This option might do nothing on some systems, where POSIX process
           scheduling is not supported.

       -I, --iosched class:priority
           This alters the IO scheduler class and priority of the process
           before starting it (since version 1.15.0).  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 currently supported values for class are idle,
           best-effort and real-time.

           This option might do nothing on some systems, where Linux IO
           scheduling is not supported.

       -k, --umask mask
           This sets the umask of the process before starting it (since
           version 1.13.22).

       -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 only be removed when stopping the
           program if --remove-pidfile is used.

           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.

       --remove-pidfile
           Used when stopping a program that does not remove its own pid file
           (since version 1.17.19).  This option will make start-stop-daemon
           remove the file referenced with --pidfile after terminating the
           process.

       -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 schedule
           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

1.21.22                           2023-05-11              start-stop-daemon(8)

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