How do I run a Debian init.d script manually, not at boot?

Question

How do I stop an init.d server from running on boot, but still allow running it manually?

Michael Hampton · Answer 1 · 2013-01-04T20:14:38.187

11

See the man page for update-rc.d.

To stop a service from running at boot:

update-rc.d -f servicename remove

Or:

update-rc.d servicename stop 20 2 3 4 5 .

If you have Debian squeeze or later, or Ubuntu 12.10 or later:

update-rc.d servicename disable

To allow a service to run at boot:

update-rc.d servicename defaults

If you have Debian squeeze or later, or Ubuntu 12.10 or later:

update-rc.d servicename enable

To run the service manually:

service servicename start
service servicename restart

To stop the service manually:

service servicename stop

edited Jan 04 '13 at 20:14

answered Jan 04 '13 at 01:00

Michael Hampton

1

According to the manpage, `-f servicename remove` is technically only supposed to be used when you're removing the associated initscript entirely; `disable` is more correct. – tgies Jan 04 '13 at 02:14
1

@tgies The `disable` option may not exist on the target system. It appears to have been introduced in squeeze, and doesn't exist on Ubuntu systems at all. – Michael Hampton Jan 04 '13 at 02:17
It definitely exists on at least Ubuntu 12.10; I actually had occasion to use it yesterday. sysv-rc version 2.88dsf-13.10ubuntu13. But I didn't know it was a recently-added thing, so thank you. – tgies Jan 04 '13 at 02:27
@MichaelHampton as a note, all versions of Debian older than Squeeze have reached end of life. Lenny is no longer covered by the security team. – Matthew Flaschen Jan 04 '13 at 20:08
@MatthewFlaschen I've incorporated those into my answer. Keep in mind that we like answers that will be useful not only today, but hopefully years from now. :) – Michael Hampton Jan 04 '13 at 20:15
@MichaelHampton, at the same time, if you're still using Lenny or older you're risking unpatched vulnerabilities. – Matthew Flaschen Jan 04 '13 at 20:16
@MatthewFlaschen You'd be surprised what sorts of antiques are lurking in dark data centers and server closets... but that's neither here nor there. – Michael Hampton Jan 04 '13 at 20:17

Matthew Flaschen · Answer 2 · 2013-01-04T20:13:31.183

2

On Debian Squeeze and up:

sudo update-rc.d server-name disable

To reverse:

sudo update-rc.d server-name enable

edited Jan 04 '13 at 20:13

answered Jan 04 '13 at 01:00

Matthew Flaschen

These options don't seem to exist? – Michael Hampton Jan 04 '13 at 01:05
@MichaelHampton, what distro and version are you on? They exist on Debian Wheezy. – Matthew Flaschen Jan 04 '13 at 02:06
Looks like these were introduced with Squeeze. So don't count on them being present on your legacy systems. – Michael Hampton Jan 04 '13 at 02:10

2 Answers2