Linux - init scripts

This whole article is obsoleted by systemd and systemctl.

Here's a template for init (source) :

#!/bin/bash
######################################### myInitScript.sh ###########################################
# chkconfig: 2345 20 80
# description: Description comes here....
#
# version: 20160609
########################################## ##########################################################

UNIX_SUCCESS=0
UNIX_FAILURE=1

# Source function library.
. /etc/init.d/functions		maybe not a good idea 

start() {
	# code to start app comes here
	# example: daemon program_name &
	}

stop() {
	# code to stop app comes here
	# example: killproc program_name
	}

case "$1" in
	start)
		start
		;;
	stop)
		stop
		;;
	restart)
		stop
		start
		;;
	status)
		# code to check status of app comes here
		# example: status program_name
		;;
	*)
		echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart}"
esac

exit $UNIX_SUCCESS

When the system runlevel changes (increase/decrease runlevel, boot and shutdown), init scripts (aka startup scripts) are executed with a single argument being one of (source) :

• start : start the service
• stop : stop the service
• restart : stop and restart the service if the service is already running, otherwise start the service
• try-restart : restart the service if the service is already running
• 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 if it is running
• status : print the current status of the service

This whole article is obsoleted by systemd and systemctl.

The Debian method :

The new Red Hat method

The old Red Hat method