rcservice

rc-service is a command-line utility that is part of the OpenRC init system, used to control individual services on machines running OpenRC. OpenRC is a dependency-based init framework designed to provide parallel startup while maintaining portability across Linux and other Unix-like systems. rc-service provides the primary user-facing interface for managing services described by /etc/init.d scripts and coordinated by OpenRC's runlevel and dependency logic.

Usage is simple: rc-service takes a service name and a command, typically starting with start, stop, restart, or status. For example, rc-service nginx start will launch the nginx service, and rc-service mysql status will report its current state. The exact set of supported commands can vary by implementation and version, but start, stop, restart and status are commonly available.

rc-service works together with rc-update to control when services are started at boot. Services are assigned to runlevels; enabling a service in a given runlevel means OpenRC will start it automatically when that runlevel is entered, such as the default or a single-user runlevel.

Historically, rc-service is associated with Gentoo’s OpenRC but is used by other OpenRC-based systems, including Alpine Linux. It is designed to be simple and scriptable, with a focus on predictable startup ordering and clean shutdowns.

See also: OpenRC, rc-update, /etc/init.d, runlevels.