NAME
service - Start or stop an operating system server or device
driver.
SYNOPSIS
service up <service> [-args args] [-dev special] [-period
ticks]
service down <pid>
service refresh <pid>
service rescue <dir>
service shutdown
DESCRIPTION
Tells the reincarnation server to start or stop a system
service, such as a server or device driver. The device
driver will be automatically restarted when it unexpectedly
exits, e.g., if it is killed because of a bad pointer.
Starting requires an absoluate path to the binary to be exe-
cuted.
When an optional period is specified, the reincarnation
server sends a status request to the system service after
every period. If there the response does not arrive in time,
the reincarnation server will kill the misbehaving process
and restart a new one. The period must be specified in
ticks, but can be appended with 'HZ' to make it seconds.
Stopping a system service requires the process id of a run-
ning system service. Issuing a kill command from the shell
will not work, since the reincarnation server interprets
this as an unexpected exit and will automatically restart a
fresh copy of the process. The clean way to restart a pro-
cess is using the
The rescue call can be used to set the current working
directory of the reincarnation server. By using a trusted
rescue driver to shadow certain binaries in RAM the reincar-
nation server can check that rescue directory for binaries
if the normal execution of the absolute path fails. This
allows recovery from failures of the root file system
driver.
If the system is to be shutdown, the reincarnation server
should know about this event to prevent it from restarting
services that are killed during the shutdown sequence.
EXAMPLES
service up /sbin/is -period 5HZ
Start the IS server and check its status every 5
seconds.
service up /usr/sbin/dp8390 -args DPETH0=pci
Start the DP8390 ethernet driver, passing one argument.
service down 117
Stop the system service with process id 117.
SEE ALSO
boot(8), monitor(8)