9.3. Starting and Stopping Processes

The Red Hat distribution of Linux provides a slightly more organized way of managing processes. Instead of hunting and killing them by finding their process id in the process table, Red Hat provides a collection of scripts in the ``/etc/rc.d/init.d'' directory which will allow you to start and stop processes as desired.

For example, to shut down the ``httpd'' (Apache web server) service, simply run the httpd script, as follows:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop

In much the same manner, you can use the ``start'' option to start a service. Or, if you have made changes to a configuration file and wish to restart a service so those changes are recognized, you can use the ``restart'' option.

(Note: Oddly enough, the ``restart'' option does not seem to be supported for some services.)