sv

Check status of a service

$ sv status [servicename]

$ sv up [servicename]

$ sv down [servicename]

$ sv restart [servicename]

$ sv hup [servicename]

$ sv once [servicename]

$ sv force-stop [servicename]

$ sv -v status [servicename]

sv [-v] [-w sec] command services...

sv controls and manages services supervised by runsv in the runit init system. It sends commands to service directories and reports their status. Services are typically located in /service/ or a custom service directory.
Each service is a directory containing a run script that runsv executes and supervises. When a service stops unexpectedly, runsv automatically restarts it. The down command prevents automatic restart, while once runs the service without restart supervision.
The sv command can be symlinked to /etc/init.d/ to provide LSB init script compatibility. When invoked this way, the service name is derived from the script's basename.
Status output shows the service state (run, down, finish), PID, and uptime. The log service status is also shown if a log/ subdirectory exists.

-v

Wait up to 7 seconds for commands to take effect and report status

Set timeout to sec seconds (implies -v)

status

Report current status of the service and its log service

Start the service; restart it if it stops

Stop the service with TERM and CONT signals; do not restart

Start the service once; do not restart if it stops

Restart the service (LSB-compatible, waits for completion)

Start the service (LSB-compatible)

Stop the service (LSB-compatible)

Send HUP signal (LSB-compatible)

Send respective signal (HUP, CONT, STOP, TERM, KILL)

Send USR1 or USR2 signal

Send ALRM, INT, or QUIT signal

Stop the service and do not restart; exit runsv

Verify service is in requested state; run ./check script if present

Forced versions of stop/restart/reload/shutdown

Exit codes vary: 0 for success, 1 for timeout, 100 for errors. When used as an init script, exit code 3 indicates the service is down, and 4 means unknown status. Commands like down send signals but do not wait by default; use -v to wait.

sv is part of runit, created by Gerrit Pape around 2004 as a Unix init scheme with service supervision. Runit was designed as a replacement for sysvinit and is used as the default init system in Void Linux and available on many other distributions as an alternative to systemd.

runsv(8), runsvdir(8), svlogd(8), chpst(8), systemctl(1)