🟠 High   ⏱ 5–30 min  Last verified: 19 May 2026
Affected versions: FreeBSD 13

📖 ~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

A critical daemon is disabled or exits during boot, causing outages until manual restart.

Environment & Reproduction

Usually appears after configuration edits or package upgrades.

service -e
service myservice onestart
grep myservice /etc/rc.conf

Root Cause Analysis

Incorrect rc.conf knobs, missing runtime directories, or startup ordering dependencies prevent service initialization.

Quick Triage

Capture service logs and rc order quickly.

service myservice status
tail -n 100 /var/log/messages
rcorder /etc/rc.d/* /usr/local/etc/rc.d/* | tail

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Validate script requirements and runtime prerequisites.

sh -x /usr/local/etc/rc.d/myservice checkconfig
grep -E 'PROVIDE|REQUIRE' /usr/local/etc/rc.d/myservice
ls -la /var/run
Illustrative mockup for freebsd-13 — terminal_or_shell
Reviewing failed rc.d service status — Illustrative mockup — Progressive Robot

Solution – Primary Fix

Fix rc.conf values, create required paths, and restart with proper dependencies.

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sysrc myservice_enable=YES
install -d -o root -g wheel -m 755 /var/run/myservice
service myservice restart
Illustrative mockup for freebsd-13 — log_or_config
Correcting rc.conf and service dependencies — Illustrative mockup — Progressive Robot

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Wrap startup in a local rc.d shim for delayed dependency readiness or use daemon supervision.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Service starts cleanly across reboots and remains stable.

service myservice status
reboot
service myservice status

Rollback Plan

Restore prior rc.conf and service script if regression appears.

cp -a /etc/rc.conf /etc/rc.conf.rollback
cp -a /usr/local/etc/rc.d/myservice /usr/local/etc/rc.d/myservice.rollback

Prevention & Hardening

Track rc settings in version control and test boot paths after each maintenance window.

Related to port conflicts, permission-denied runtime files, and late-mounted filesystems.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for freebsd-13.

View all freebsd-13 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

rc(8), rc.conf(5), and FreeBSD service management documentation.

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