Question

8

What's the difference between "restart X" and "/etc/init.d/X restart"?

rated 0 times [ 8] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 2447 / 2 Years ago, thu, february 17, 2022, 8:50:54

I normally use this command to restart my daemons(e.g. vsftpd):

$sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

Early today I noticed it said that I can try restart(8) utility. I did:

$sudo restart vsftpd

It worked. But when I tried to restart my apache2:

$sudo restart apache2

> restart: Unknown job: apache2

Why are they different? Of course I can restart apache2 by /etc/init.d/apache2

Answers

Only authorized users can answer the question. Please sign in first, or register a free account.

warrdel

Add To Favorites

Follow

Total Points: 356

Total Questions: 103

Total Answers: 118

Location: Bangladesh

Member since Sat, Jan 23, 2021

3 Years ago

answered 2 Years ago ronicod · Accepted Answer

The commands start, stop, restart, etc., are links for initctl, and only work for upstart jobs.

Calling directly the script in /etc/init.d/ will give a warning for upstart jobs, for which the use of the script is allowed for convenience, through a wrapper symlinked common script.

Calling the service command always works, both for upstart jobs and for traditional sysv init scripts, so it is the preferred way.