🟡 Medium   ⏱ 5–30 min  Last verified: 19 May 2026
Affected versions: FreeBSD 15

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents
  1. Symptom & Impact
  2. Environment & Reproduction
  3. Root Cause Analysis
  4. Quick Triage
  5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
  6. Solution – Primary Fix
  7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
  8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
  9. Rollback Plan
  10. Prevention & Hardening
  11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
  12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

Service remains stopped after reboot despite appearing enabled in configuration.

Environment & Reproduction

Usually caused by wrong variable name or conflicting rc.conf.d override.

service  rcvar

Root Cause Analysis

rc.d script reads a specific *_enable variable that is missing or overridden.

Quick Triage

Inspect final merged service config variables.

sysrc -a | grep

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Check /etc/rc.conf, /etc/rc.conf.local, and rc.conf.d files for collisions.

grep -R "_enable" /etc/rc*
Illustrative mockup for freebsd-15 — rcvar_check
Checking rcvar and service enable variables — Illustrative mockup — Progressive Robot

Solution – Primary Fix

Set the exact rcvar expected by script and restart service.

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sudo sysrc _enable=YES && sudo service  restart
Illustrative mockup for freebsd-15 — sysrc_enable_fix
Setting correct rc.conf variable using sysrc — Illustrative mockup — Progressive Robot

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Embed service startup in custom local startup script as temporary bridge.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Service starts at boot and remains enabled across config reloads.

Rollback Plan

Revert rc.conf changes and restore previous startup strategy.

Prevention & Hardening

Use sysrc for all service toggles to avoid syntax mistakes.

Often linked to syntax errors in rc.conf and bad shell quoting.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for freebsd-15.

View all freebsd-15 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

FreeBSD rc system handbook entries.

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