service

Additional Notes

service runs legacy init (SysV) service scripts. It is the traditional way to start, stop, restart, and check services on SysV-based systems, and it wraps the /etc/init.d/ scripts.

On systemd-based distributions, service usually redirects to systemctl for compatibility, so the same command works in older guides and newer systems alike.

Syntax

service [options] SERVICE ACTION

Parameters

• options: Flags that change how service behaves.
• SERVICE: Name of the service script to manage.
• ACTION: What to do: start, stop, restart, reload, status, and so on.

Common Actions

• SERVICE status: Show whether the service is running.
• SERVICE start: Start the service now.
• SERVICE stop: Stop the service now.
• SERVICE restart: Stop then start the service.
• SERVICE reload: Ask the service to reload its config without a full restart.
• SERVICE force-reload: Reload, falling back to restart if reload is unsupported.
• SERVICE condrestart: Restart only if already running.

Common Options

• --status-all: Show status of every init script.
• --list: List installed service scripts.
• -h, --help: Show usage help.
• --version: Print the version.

Examples

sudo service ssh status

Check whether the SSH service is running.

sudo service nginx restart

Restart the nginx service.

sudo service cron stop

Stop the cron service.

sudo service apache2 reload

Reload Apache configuration without dropping connections.

sudo service --status-all

Print a running/stopped summary for all services.

service --list

List available service scripts on the system.

Practical Notes

• Most actions need sudo because they change system state.
• On systemd systems, prefer systemctl; service still works through compatibility.
• Use reload (or force-reload) when the service supports it to avoid a full restart.
• status output varies by script; combine with journalctl or logs for detail on systemd hosts.
• service --status-all is handy for a quick overview during troubleshooting.