rsv

A friendly wrapper around runit's sv command, with system and user service support.

Why?

I don't hate myself and this is a nice wrapper.
The inspiration was OpenRC's rc-service and rc-update. I hate doing ln -s /etc/runit/sv/service_name /run/runit/service — that gets annoying fast, and I don't have to think about it with this.

Other runit service managers

Before starting this project I wasn't aware of existing tools. Here's how they compare:

Tool	Language	Last Updated	Notes
rsv	Rust	~3 years ago	Abandoned, list is raw sv status dump
vsv	Rust	~3 years ago	Rewrite of bash-vsv, Void-focused, Abandoned
bash-vsv	Bash	~3 years ago	Original vsv, Void-focused, Abandoned
rsm	Bash	~5 years ago	bash-vsv fork for Artix, shows internal runit dirs as services, Abandoned
roonit	C	~5 years ago	Void-focused, very basic, Abandoned

list benchmark (Artix, 47 services)

Tool	Time	Output
rsv (JojiiOfficial)	~14ms	Raw unsorted sv status dump, no colors, includes internal dirs
rsm	~168ms	Formatted, but includes current/supervise as services
rsv (this)	~32ms	Sorted, colored, filters internals, enabled/disabled/uptime distinction
vsv-bash	~168ms	estimated, same codebase as rsm
others	?	Untested, don't use Void

If you use Void and want to benchmark I will add those.

Installation

Run the install script as root (system-wide) or as your user (local):

sudo ./Install.sh   # installs to /usr/local/bin, system completion dirs
./Install.sh        # installs to ~/.local/bin, user completion dirs

Manual installation

System-wide (as root)

install -Dm755 rsv      /usr/local/bin/rsv
install -Dm644 rsv.bash /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/rsv
install -Dm644 rsv.fish /usr/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/rsv.fish
install -Dm644 rsv.zsh  /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_rsv

User-local

install -m755 rsv      ~/.local/bin/rsv
install -m644 rsv.bash ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/rsv
install -m644 rsv.fish ~/.config/fish/completions/rsv.fish
install -m644 rsv.zsh  ~/.local/share/zsh/site-functions/_rsv

Note: For sudo rsv to work, system-wide installation is recommended.

Usage

rsv [--user] [--as-user <user>] <command> [service] [flags]

System services require root. User services are selected automatically when not root, or explicitly with --user.

Commands

Command	Description
start <service>	start a service
stop <service>	stop a service
restart <service>	restart a service
reload <service>	reload a service
enable <service>	enable a service
disable <service>	disable a service
status [service]	status of one or all enabled services
list	list all available services and their state
logs [service]	tail logs for a service, or the global log
edit <service>	open the service run script in $EDITOR
new <service>	scaffold a new service
init	start the user runsvdir supervisor (user mode only)
doctor	check for common runit configuration problems
once <service>	run a service once without supervision
watch [service]	auto-refreshing status display
log-setup <service>	add a svlogd log service to an existing service
log-remove <service>	remove the svlogd log service from a service
finish-setup <service>	scaffold a finish script (runs on service exit)

Flags

Flag	Applies to	Description
--user	all	operate on user services (auto-set when not root)
--as-user <user>	all	manage another user's services (requires r/w access)
--now	enable	also start the service immediately
--log	new	also scaffold a log service
-u, --uptime	list	show uptime for running services
--interval <N>	watch	refresh every N seconds (default 2)
--errors	logs	show only error/warn/crit/fail lines
--level <levels>	logs	filter by log level, e.g. --level error,warn
--lines <N>	logs	show last N matching lines (default 10)

Examples

# system services
sudo rsv status
sudo rsv restart NetworkManager
sudo rsv enable --now sshd
sudo rsv list
sudo rsv list -u
sudo rsv logs NetworkManager
sudo rsv logs NetworkManager --errors
sudo rsv logs NetworkManager --level info,warn

# watch services refresh every 5 seconds
sudo rsv watch --interval 5

# user services
rsv status
rsv enable --now pipewire
rsv logs syncthing

# create a new service with logging
sudo rsv new myapp --log
sudo rsv edit myapp
sudo rsv enable --now myapp

# manage another user's services (requires r/w access to their runit dirs)
sudo rsv --as-user bob enable pipewire
sudo rsv --as-user bob logs pipewire

If you run a command against the wrong mode, rsv will tell you:

error: service 'metalog' not found in /home/user/.runit/sv
hint:  did you mean: sudo rsv status metalog

User services

User services live in ~/.runit/sv with symlinks in ~/.runit/runsvdir. Start the user supervisor at login by adding this to your session init (~/.profile, ~/.xinitrc, etc.):

rsv --user init

Paths can be overridden with environment variables:

Variable	Default
RUNIT_SVDIR	~/.runit/sv
RUNIT_RUNSVDIR	~/.runit/runsvdir
RUNIT_LOG	~/.runit/log/everything/current

Paths

Artix

	System	User
service definitions	/etc/runit/sv	~/.runit/sv
enabled services	/etc/runit/runsvdir/default	~/.runit/runsvdir
global log	/var/log/everything/current	~/.runit/log/everything/current
per-service log	/var/log/<service>/current	~/.runit/log/<service>/current

Void

	System	User
service definitions	/etc/sv	~/.runit/sv
enabled services	/var/service	~/.runit/runsvdir
global log	/var/log/sv/everything/current	~/.runit/log/everything/current
per-service log	/var/log/sv/<service>/current	~/.runit/log/<service>/current

Devuan

	System	User
service definitions	/etc/sv	~/.runit/sv
enabled services	/etc/runit/runsvdir/default	~/.runit/runsvdir
global log	/var/log/runit/everything/current	~/.runit/log/everything/current
per-service log	/var/log/<service>/current	~/.runit/log/<service>/current

Per-service logging

Services that write to stdout/stderr can have a dedicated svlogd log service added with log-setup:

sudo rsv log-setup myapp

This creates a log/run script that pipes the service's output through svlogd into its own log directory. Once active, rsv logs myapp reads from there directly instead of filtering the global log.

Note: Some services (e.g. NetworkManager) log via syslog rather than stdout, so their per-service log will be empty. The global log is the right source for those.

To remove per-service logging:

sudo rsv log-remove myapp

Log data is left in place — remove it manually if no longer needed.

Shell completions

Completions for fish, bash, and zsh are included. The install script places them automatically.

Commands, flags, and service names are all completed. Flags only appear for the commands they apply to — --now for enable, --log and --user for new, -u/--uptime for list, --interval for watch, and --errors/--level/--lines for logs. log-setup and finish-setup only suggest services that don't already have a log service or finish script respectively.

NO_COLOR

rsv respects the NO_COLOR convention. When running under sudo, it recovers the variable from the parent shell's environment since sudo strips it. TERM=dumb also disables color.