🟡 Medium   ⏱ 5–30 min  Last verified: 19 May 2026
Affected versions: FreeBSD 14

📖 ~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

Application daemon does not start at boot, leaving dependent workloads unavailable.

Environment & Reproduction

Common with custom rc.d scripts missing proper REQUIRE/BEFORE metadata.

service -e
ls /usr/local/etc/rc.d

Root Cause Analysis

Incorrect rcorder dependency tags start service before prerequisites are ready.

Quick Triage

Run rcorder over scripts and inspect startup logs for dependency timing.

rcorder /etc/rc.d/* /usr/local/etc/rc.d/* | grep

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Check rc script headers and required services for proper ordering semantics.

head -n 40 /usr/local/etc/rc.d/
grep -n '_enable' /etc/rc.conf
Illustrative mockup for freebsd-14 — rcd_service_fail
Service start failure during boot — Illustrative mockup — Progressive Robot

Solution – Primary Fix

Correct rc.d metadata and ensure required dependencies are enabled.

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vi /usr/local/etc/rc.d/
sysrc _enable=YES
service  start
Illustrative mockup for freebsd-14 — rcd_service_ok
Service ordering fixed — Illustrative mockup — Progressive Robot

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Replace fragile rc scripts with supervised service wrappers where appropriate.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Service starts automatically after reboot and remains healthy.

reboot
service  status

Rollback Plan

Revert rc.d script changes and start service manually while investigating.

Prevention & Hardening

Version-control rc scripts and run dependency validation before deployment.

service not found in rcorder, dependency failed, rc script exited with status 1.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for freebsd-14.

View all freebsd-14 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

FreeBSD rc scripting and rcorder dependency documentation.

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