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Eric H
Asked: 2010-07-29 15:40:18 +0800 CST

Command to list services that start on startup?

  • 772

Is there a command to list services that run on startup? I imagine it would involve parsing /etc/init.d/, and the various /etc/rc.* directories.

upstart services systemd init.d

9 Answers

  1. The quick answer is: It depends on your init system.

    The long answer is: For current versions of Ubuntu, you probably have a mix of Upstart, and SystemV. Newer versions of Ubuntu after 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" (and other Linux distros like RHEL/CentOS 7) are moving to use SystemD.

    Upstart

    To list all services:

    sudo initctl list

    To list all Upstart services and run initctl show-config on them, this one-liner may be helpful:

    sudo initctl list | awk '{ print $1 }' | xargs -n1 initctl show-config

    System V

    To list all services:

    sudo service --status-all

    OR:

    # for init scripts:
ls /etc/init.d/

# for runlevel symlinks:
ls /etc/rc*.d/

    SystemD

    To list all services:

    sudo systemctl --all list-unit-files --type=service

    OR:

    ls /lib/systemd/system/*.service /etc/systemd/system/*.service
    • 185
  2. Best Answer

    You can simply use the initctl list shell command to list the contents of /etc/init rather than the suggested dbus-send command.

    • 113

  3. For Ubuntu 18.04 use :

    systemctl list-units --type=service

    instead of initctl.

    Since Ubuntu 16.04, initctl has been replaced by systemd (source, in French).

    If it can help @sanjay-manohar.

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  4. The /etc/init.d and /etc/rc.* directories have been superseded by the 'upstart' init tool. Although scripts in these directories will be executed as expected, the new method for running things on init is defined by files in /etc/init/

    You can list all of the upstart jobs with by querying upstart over dbus:

    dbus-send --print-reply --system --dest=com.ubuntu.Upstart \
        /com/ubuntu/Upstart com.ubuntu.Upstart0_6.GetAllJobs

    You may have to change 0_6 to reflect the version of upstart you have. This command works on my lucid install.

    • 13

  5. If you want a nice graphical representation of services and time it takes to boot try:

    sudo apt install bootchart

    For systemd (since 16.04) try systemd-bootchart instead:

    sudo apt install systemd-bootchart
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  6. Id use initctl show-config <servicename> to really get the details of when/if your service will start during boot.

    Like so:

    $ initctl show-config myservice
myservice
  start on runlevel [2345]
  stop on runlevel [!2345]

    Or for NFS4 idmap-daemon:

    $ initctl show-config idmapd
idmapd
  start on (local-filesystems or mounting TYPE=nfs4)
  stop on runlevel [06]

    chkconfig is only preferable on RedHat based systems imho.

    • 11

  7. On 12.04 we could use:

    sudo apt-get install chkconfig
chkconfig --list

    but it was removed in 12.10.

    Sample output:

    acpi-support              0:off  1:off  2:on   3:on   4:on   5:on   6:off
acpid                     0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off
apparmor                  0:off  1:off  2:off  3:off  4:off  5:off  6:off  S:on
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  8. Besides system services and scripts under:

    /etc/init.d/
    /lib/systemd/system/
    /etc/systemd/system/

    There are probably AutoStart Applications too, for example:

    find / -name "*autostart*"

ls -1 "/etc/xdg/autostart" "/home/$USER/.config/autostart" "/usr/share/gdm/autostart"  "/usr/share/gnome/autostart"
    • 4

  9. Using gawk:

    ls -l /etc/rc*.d/* | gawk 'match($0, /rc([0-6S]).d.*\/(.*)$/, a) {l[a[2]]=l[a[2]]a[1]","}; END{for(v in l){print v,substr(l[v],1,length(l[v])-1)}}'

    Sample output:

    $ ls -l /etc/rc*.d/* | gawk 'match($0, /rc([0-6S]).d.*\/(.*)$/, a) {l[a[2]]=l[a[2]]a[1]","}; END{for(v in l){print v,substr(l[v],1,length(l[v])-1)}}' | egrep README
README 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,S
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