lazysvctl

A wrapper around runit's sv for LazyLinux (Void Linux). Manages both system services and per-user services, with a readable table view, coloured status output, and log access through socklog or svlogd.

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How runit works (the short version)

Runit supervises services through three directories:

Path	Purpose
/etc/sv/<name>/	Service definition — contains a run script (and optionally a log/run script)
/var/service/<name>	Symlink → /etc/sv/<name>. A service is enabled when this symlink exists
/run/sv/<name>/	Runtime state managed by runsv

The daemon runsvdir watches /var/service/ and spawns a runsv supervisor for each symlink it finds. Enabling a service means creating the symlink; disabling it means removing it.

For user services, there are no symlinks — the service directory lives directly under ~/service/. Disabling moves it to ~/service/.disabled/; enabling restores it from there.

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Installation

git clone https://github.com/lazylinuxos/lazysvctl.git
cd lazysvctl
sudo install -m 755 lazysvctl /usr/local/bin/lazysvctl

Optional: shell alias

Add to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc for a shorter name:

alias lsv='lazysvctl'

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Logging setup

lazysvctl looks for logs in two places, in order:

1. Per-service svlogd — if the service has its own ./log/run script, logs land in <service_dir>/log/main/current.
2. socklog-void — a system-wide syslog daemon that writes all service output to /var/log/socklog/everything/current. lazysvctl filters this file by service name when reading it.

Setting up socklog-void (recommended)

sudo xbps-install socklog-void

sudo ln -s /etc/sv/socklog-unix /var/service/
sudo ln -s /etc/sv/nanoklogd    /var/service/

# Allow your user to read logs without sudo
sudo usermod -aG socklog $USER
# Log out and back in (or: newgrp socklog)

After this, lazysvctl status sshd will show recent log lines at the bottom, and lazysvctl log-tail sshd will follow the live stream.

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Commands

Service control

lazysvctl start   SERVICE [...]   # start and keep running (restart on exit)
lazysvctl stop    SERVICE [...]   # stop gracefully
lazysvctl restart SERVICE [...]   # send term+cont, wait for restart
lazysvctl reload  SERVICE [...]   # send HUP (reload config without restart)
lazysvctl once    SERVICE [...]   # start once, do not restart on exit
lazysvctl pause   SERVICE [...]   # send STOP signal (freeze)
lazysvctl cont    SERVICE [...]   # send CONT signal (unfreeze)
lazysvctl kill    SERVICE [...]   # send KILL signal

Status

lazysvctl status SERVICE [...]

Shows state, PID, process name, uptime, path, and log service state. Appends the last 10 log lines at the bottom if logs are available.

States:

• ✔ running — supervised and running normally
• down — stopped manually (via sv down)
• ✘ failed — supposed to be running but the process exited unexpectedly; runit is trying to restart it
• n/a — runsv is not supervising this directory

Listing

lazysvctl list                # active (enabled) services with state, PID, command, uptime
lazysvctl list --all          # all services: both enabled and disabled
lazysvctl list --disabled     # only disabled services

# For user services, --disabled lists services parked in ~/service/.disabled/
lazysvctl --user list --disabled

Example output:

  SERVICE         STATE      ENABLED  PID   COMMAND         TIME
  ──────────────  ─────────  ───────  ────  ──────────────  ────
  NetworkManager  ✔ running  yes      829   NetworkManager  2h
  acpid           ---        no       -     -               -
  sshd            ✔ running  yes      833   sshd            2h
  chronyd         down       yes      -     -               5m

Enable / disable

System services (default — no flag needed):

sudo lazysvctl enable  SERVICE   # create /var/service/<name> → /etc/sv/<name>
sudo lazysvctl disable SERVICE   # stop the service and remove the symlink

User services:

lazysvctl --user disable SERVICE
# Stops the service and moves ~/service/<name> → ~/service/.disabled/<name>

lazysvctl --user enable SERVICE
# Restores ~/service/.disabled/<name> back to ~/service/<name>
# If not found in .disabled, prints an error and tells you to create the service

Logs

lazysvctl log-tail SERVICE   # follow live log (Ctrl+C to stop)
lazysvctl log-cat  SERVICE   # dump the entire current log to stdout

When using socklog, output is automatically filtered to show only lines from the requested service.

Scripting helpers

lazysvctl is-active  SERVICE   # exits 0 if running, 1 otherwise
lazysvctl is-enabled SERVICE   # exits 0 if symlink/directory exists, 1 otherwise

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Global options

Flag	Effect
--user	Operate on user services (~/service or $SVDIR)
-q, --quiet	Suppress informational output
-w SEC	Override the default 7-second sv timeout

System services are the default when --user is not specified.

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Per-user services

User-level services are useful for things that should run as your own user (SSH tunnels, agents, daemons) without root, and that need access to your session environment.

1. Bootstrap the user service infrastructure

sudo lazysvctl --user init

This creates /etc/sv/runsvdir-<username>/run, enables it in /var/service/, and creates ~/service/ — all in one step.

2. Write a service

mkdir -p ~/service/my-tunnel/
cat > ~/service/my-tunnel/run << 'EOF'
#!/bin/sh
exec ssh -N -L 5432:localhost:5432 myserver
EOF
chmod +x ~/service/my-tunnel/run

3. Control it with --user

lazysvctl --user status my-tunnel
lazysvctl --user restart my-tunnel
lazysvctl --user log-tail my-tunnel

4. Disable and re-enable without deleting

lazysvctl --user disable my-tunnel
# Service is stopped and moved to ~/service/.disabled/my-tunnel

lazysvctl --user enable my-tunnel
# Service is restored to ~/service/my-tunnel and picked up by runsvdir

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Environment variables

Variable	Default	Effect
SVDIR	~/service	User service directory for --user mode
SVWAIT	7	Default timeout in seconds (overridden by -w)