.Dd April 12, 2002
.Dt SystemStarter 8 
.Os Darwin
.Sh NAME
.Nm SystemStarter
.\" The following lines are read in generating the apropos(man -k) database. Use only key
.\" words here as the database is built based on the words here and in the .ND line. 
.\" Use .Nm macro to designate other names for the documented program.
.Nd Start, stop, and restart system services
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl gvxdDqn
.Op Ar action Op Ar service
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility is deprecated.  System services should instead be described by a
.Xr launchd.plist 5 .
See
.Xr launchd 8
for more details.
The
.Nm launchd
utility is available on Mac OS X 10.4 and later.
.Pp
In earlier versions of Mac OS X, the 
.Nm 
utility is used to start, stop, and restart the system services which
are described in the
.Pa /Library/StartupItems/
and
.Pa /System/Library/StartupItems/
paths.
.Pp
The optional
.Ar action
argument specifies which action 
.Nm
performs on the startup items.  The optional
.Ar service
argument specifies which startup items to perform the action on.  If no
.Ar service
is specified, all startup items will be acted on; otherwise, only the item providing the 
.Ar service ,
any items it requires, or any items that depend on it will be acted on.
.Pp
During boot 
.Nm
is invoked by
.Xr launchd 8
and is responsible for
starting all startup items in an order that satisfies each item's 
requirements.
.Sh ACTIONS
.Bl -tag -width -indent
.It Nm start
start all items, or start the item that provides the specified
.Ar service
and all items providing services it requires.
.It Nm stop
stop all items, or stop the item that provides the specified
.Ar service
and all items that depend on it.
.It Nm restart
restart all items, or restart the item providing the specified
.Ar service .
.El
.Sh OPTIONS
.Bl -tag -width -indent
.It Fl g
(ignored)
.It Fl v
verbose (text mode) startup
.It Fl x
(ignored)
.It Fl r
(ignored)
.It Fl d
print debugging output
.It Fl D
print debugging output and dependencies
.It Fl q
be quiet (disable debugging output)
.It Fl n
don't actually perform action on items (no-run mode)
.El
.Sh NOTES
Unless an explicit call to
.Nm ConsoleMessage
is made,
.Nm
examines the exit status of the startup item scripts to determine the success or failure of the services provided by that script.
.Pp
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width -/System/Library/StartupItems -compact
.It Pa /Library/StartupItems/
User-installed startup items.
.It Pa /System/Library/StartupItems/
System-provided startup items.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO 
.\" List links in ascending order by section, alphabetically within a section.
.\" Please do not reference files that do not exist without filing a bug report
.Xr ConsoleMessage 8 ,
.Xr launchd 8 ,
.Xr launchd.plist 5 ,
.Xr rc 8
.\" .Sh BUGS              \" Document known, unremedied bugs 
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility appeared in Darwin 1.0 and
was extended in Darwin 6.0 to support partial startup and interprocess communication.
.Nm
was deprecated by
.Xr launchd 8
in Darwin 8.0.