---
name: "service-policy.d"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "policy-rcd-declarative"
version: "0.6"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/service-policy.d"
---

# service-policy.d(5)

configuration for policy-rc.d-declarative

## NAME

/etc/service-policy.d/\*.pol - configuration for policy-rc.d-declarative

## SYNOPSIS

*/etc/service-policy.d/\*.pol*

## DESCRIPTION

Files in the directory */etc/service-policy.d* are opened and parsed by the *policy-rc.d-declarative* script. Lines should have exactly three fields of data which are separated by whitespace; any trailing whitespace is ignored.

All files are opened in order by file name; following that, all rules in a file are evaluated in order.

The first rule that matches a given service with a given action is applied. All further rules are ignored.

If no rule matches a given service with a given action, the default is to exit with exit state 100, which signals "unknown initscript id" to the calling update-rc.d program.

## FIELDS

The file contains the following fields:

- 1\.

  The service(s) to which this should apply. This should be a perl regular expression that matches the init scripts for which this policy should be used.

- 2\.

  The action(s) which *invoke-rc.d* wants to take. For more information on the available actions, see */usr/share/doc/init-system-helpers/README.policy-rc.d.gz*.

- 3\.

  The policy to apply to this action. Available policies are:

  - allow

    Allow the action that invoke-rc.d wants to perform without modification

  - deny

    Do not allow the action.

  - restart-ignore

    Replace the action that invoke-rc.d wants to perform by `"restart stop"`. That is, try a restart action first; if that fails for some reason, try a stop action.

    Note that at the time of this writing, not all PID1 implementations support this. Notably, the systemd version of invoke-rc.d does not support overriding actions.

## SEE ALSO

*/usr/share/doc/init-system-helpers/README.policy-rc.d.gz*, **policy-rc.d-declarative**(1)