When working with Upstart on Ubuntu 12.04, you might notice that while your custom services work perfectly with start, stop, and status commands, they mysteriously disappear when you run:

service --status-all

This isn't a bug in your configuration - it's actually by design in how Upstart and the service command interact.

The service command in Ubuntu 12.04 has special handling for different init systems. For --status-all, it primarily shows services that:

• Have traditional SysV init scripts in /etc/init.d
• Include a special status function in their init script
• Are marked as "LSB compliant" in their init script headers

Upstart services defined in /etc/init/*.conf files work differently. While they integrate with the service command for basic operations, they don't automatically appear in --status-all because:

# Upstart handles status checks through its own mechanisms
status my_service

Works perfectly fine, while:

service --status-all | grep my_service

Returns nothing.

If you absolutely need your service to appear in service --status-all, you have two options:

Option 1: Create a Compatible Init Script

Add a minimal init script in /etc/init.d:

#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          my_service
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: My custom service
### END INIT INFO

case "$1" in
    status)
        status my_service
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: $0 status" >&2
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

exit 0

Then make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/my_service
sudo update-rc.d my_service defaults

Option 2: Use Upstart's Native Tools

Instead of fighting the system, consider using Upstart's native tools:

# List all jobs
initctl list

# Filter for your service
initctl list | grep my_service

# Get detailed status
status my_service

For Ubuntu 12.04 systems using Upstart, I recommend:

1. Use initctl and status commands for service management
2. Document this behavior in your project's README
3. Only create init scripts if you specifically need compatibility with legacy tools

The modern approach would be to embrace Upstart's native tools rather than trying to make them behave like SysV init.

---

When working with Upstart on Ubuntu 12.04, you'll notice that while service start/stop/status commands work perfectly for your custom services, they mysteriously disappear from service --status-all output. This isn't a bug - it's actually by design in Upstart's architecture.

The service --status-all command primarily lists services that:

• Have traditional SysV init scripts in /etc/init.d
• Include explicit status handling in their Upstart job definitions

Here's a typical working Upstart config that wouldn't appear in status-all:

# /etc/init/my_service.conf
description "My Custom Service"
author "Your Name"

start on filesystem
stop on shutdown

script
    exec /usr/bin/my_service --daemon
end script

To make your service appear in service --status-all, you need to implement the status command in your job definition. Here's the modified version:

# /etc/init/my_service.conf
description "My Custom Service"
author "Your Name"

start on filesystem
stop on shutdown

script
    exec /usr/bin/my_service --daemon
end script

# Add this section for status support
pre-start script
    if [ ! -x /usr/bin/my_service ]; then
        echo "Binary not found" >&2
        exit 1
    fi
end script

post-stop script
    # Cleanup if needed
end script

For full compatibility, create a traditional init script that interfaces with Upstart:

# /etc/init.d/my_service
#!/bin/sh

case "$1" in
    status)
        status_of_proc -p /var/run/my_service.pid /usr/bin/my_service my_service && exit 0 || exit $?
        ;;
    *)
        exec /sbin/initctl "$@"
        ;;
esac

Make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/my_service

If you prefer keeping it pure Upstart without SysV compatibility, use this pattern:

# /etc/init/my_service.conf
description "My Custom Service"
author "Your Name"

start on filesystem
stop on shutdown

respawn

script
    exec /usr/bin/my_service --daemon > /var/log/my_service.log 2>&1
    echo $! > /var/run/my_service.pid
end script

pre-start script
    # Status check logic
    if pidof my_service > /dev/null; then
        exit 0
    else
        exit 1
    fi
end script

After implementing either solution, test with:

sudo service my_service status
sudo service --status-all | grep my_service