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Serviceman is a hassle-free wrapper around your system launcher. It works with the default system launcher to make it easy to start user- and system-level services, such as webservers, backup scripts, network and system tools, etc.

Supports

launchctl (macOS)
systemctl (Linux)
The Registry (Windows)

Serviceman can run an app in just about any programming language very simply.

If you'd like to learn what serviceman does without actually making changes, add the --dryrun option.

Example: Bash

sudo env PATH="$PATH" serviceman add bash ./backup.sh /mnt/data

Example: Node.js

Development Server

pushd ./my-node-app/

sudo env PATH="$PATH" \
    serviceman add --system --cap-net-bind \
    npx nodemon ./server.js

Production Server

pushd ./my-node-app/

sudo env PATH="$PATH" \
    serviceman add --system --cap-net-bind \
    npm start

Example: Golang

pushd ./my-go-package/

sudo env PATH="$PATH" \
    serviceman add --system \
    go run -mod=vendor cmd/my-service/*.go --port 3000

pushd ./my-go-package/
go build -mod=vendor cmd/my-service

sudo env PATH="$PATH" \
    serviceman add --cap-net-bind --system \
    ./my-service --port 80

How to see all services

serviceman list --system
serviceman list --user

serviceman-managed services:

        example-service

How to restart a service

You can either add the service again (which will update any changed options), or you can stop and then start any service by its name:

sudo env PATH="$PATH" serviceman stop example-service
sudo env PATH="$PATH" serviceman start example-service

What a typical systemd .service file looks like

[Unit]
Description=example-service
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target systemd-networkd-wait-online.service

[Service]
Restart=always
StartLimitInterval=10
StartLimitBurst=3

User=root
Group=root

WorkingDirectory=/srv/example-service
ExecStart=/srv/example-service/bin/example-command start
ExecReload=/bin/kill -USR1 $MAINPID

# Allow the program to bind on privileged ports, such as 80 and 443
CapabilityBoundingSet=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE
AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE
NoNewPrivileges=true

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

What a typical launchd .plist file looks like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- Generated for serviceman. Edit as you wish, but leave this line. -->
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>example-service</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/Users/me/example-service/bin/example-command</string>
    <string>start</string>
  </array>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <true/>

  <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
  <string>/Users/me/example-service</string>

  <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
  <string>/Users/me/.local/share/example-service/var/log/example-service.log</string>
  <key>StandardOutPath</key>
  <string>/Users/me/.local/share/example-service/var/log/example-service.log</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Use `--dryrun` to see the generated launcher config:

sudo env PATH="$PATH" \
    serviceman add --system --dryrun \
    bash ./backup.sh /mnt/data

See the (sub)command help

The main help, showing all subcommands:

serviceman --help

Sub-command specific help:

serviceman add --help

README.md

Cheat Sheet