From Linux 101, The beginner's guide to all things Linux.

[edit] Introduction

Debian uses the classic sysvinit system. So, things work similiar to other distributions.

[edit] Controlling Services

To start a service:

/etc/init.d/<service> start

To stop a service:

/etc/init.d/<service> stop

Some services can reload their configurations without interrupting service:

/etc/init.d/<service> reload

If reload isn't available, restart will stop and start the service in one step:

/etc/init.d/<service> restart

[edit] Managing Services

To manage services, you can either use the command line tool update-rc.d or install a command line based graphical tool, rcconf.

Remove a service from starting by default:

update-rc.d -f <service> remove

Note: The -f is required if the package is still installed but you are just removing it from bootup.

Add a service to start by default:

update-rc.d <service> defaults

More information is available in man update-rc.d.

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