Daemontools

states of services

svstat /service/proftpd 

tells you if service proftpd is up or down
and how many seconds in that state...

stop services

svc -d /service/proftpd 

stops the proftpd service...

start services

svc -u /service/proftpd 

starts the proftpd service

send signals to services

svc -[p|c|h|a|i|t|k] /service/proftpd 

sends signals to processes: STOP, CONT, HUP, ALARM, INT, TERM, KILL

-p     STOP
-c     CONT
-h     HUP
-a     ALARM
-i     INT
-t     TERM
-k     KILL