---
name: "supervise"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "daemontools"
version: "1:0.76-14"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/supervise"
---

# supervise(8)

starts and monitors a service.

## NAME

supervise - starts and monitors a service.

## SYNOPSIS

**supervise** *s*

## DESCRIPTION

**supervise** switches to the directory named *s* and starts ./run. It restarts ./run if ./run exits. It pauses for a second after starting ./run, so that it does not loop too quickly if ./run exits immediately.

If the file *s*/down exists, **supervise** does not start ./run immediately. You can use [**svc**(8)](/svc/8.md) to start ./run and to give other commands to **supervise**.

**supervise** maintains status information in a binary format inside the directory *s*/supervise, which must be writable to **supervise**. The status information can be read by [**svstat**(8)](/svstat/8.md).

**supervise** may exit immediately after startup if it cannot find the files it needs in *s* or if another copy of **supervise** is already running in *s*. Once **supervise** is successfully running, it will not exit unless it is killed or specifically asked to exit. You can use [**svok**(8)](/svok/8.md) to check whether **supervise** is successfully running. You can use [**svscan**(8)](/svscan/8.md) to reliably start a collection of **supervise** processes.

## SEE ALSO

[svc(8)](/svc/8.md), [svok(8)](/svok/8.md), [svstat(8)](/svstat/8.md), [svscanboot(8)](/svscanboot/8.md), [svscan(8)](/svscan/8.md), [readproctitle(8)](/readproctitle/8.md), [fghack(8)](/fghack/8.md),   [pgrphack(8)](/pgrphack/8.md), [multilog(8)](/multilog/8.md), [tai64n(8)](/tai64n/8.md), [tai64nlocal(8)](/tai64nlocal/8.md), [setuidgid(8)](/setuidgid/8.md), [envuidgid(8)](/envuidgid/8.md), [envdir(8)](/envdir/8.md), [softlimit(8)](/softlimit/8.md), [setlock(8)](/setlock/8.md)

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