# Starting and Stopping Overview

There are several different methods to start or stop the MariaDB Server process. There are two primary categories that most of these methods fall into: starting the process with the help of a service manager, and starting the process manually.

## Service Managers

[sysVinit](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/sysvinit) and [systemd](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/systemd) are the most common Linux service managers. [launchd](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/launchd) is used in MacOS X. [Upstart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart_\(software\)) is a less common service manager.

### Systemd

RHEL/CentOS 7 and above, Debian 8 Jessie and above, and Ubuntu 15.04 and above use [systemd](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/systemd) by default.

For information on how to start and stop MariaDB with this service manager, see [systemd: Interacting with the MariaDB Server Process](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/systemd#interacting-with-the-mariadb-server-process).

### SysVinit

RHEL/CentOS 6 and below, and Debian 7 Wheezy and below use [sysVinit](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/sysvinit) by default.

For information on how to start and stop MariaDB with this service manager, see [sysVinit: Interacting with the MariaDB Server Process](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/sysvinit#interacting-with-the-mariadb-server-process).

### launchd

[launchd](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/launchd) is used in MacOS X.

### Upstart

Ubuntu 14.10 and below use Upstart by default.

## Starting the Server Process Manually

### mariadbd

[mariadbd](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-options) is the actual MariaDB Server binary. It can be started manually on its own.

### mariadbd-safe

[mariadbd-safe](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-safe) is a wrapper that can be used to start the [mariadbd](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-options) server process. The script has some built-in safeguards, such as automatically restarting the server process if it dies. See [mariadbd-safe](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-safe) for more information.

### mariadbd-multi

[mariadbd-multi](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-multi) is a wrapper that can be used to start the [mariadbd](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-options) server process if you plan to run multiple server processes on the same host. See [mariadbd-multi](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-multi) for more information.

### mysql.server

[mysql.server](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mysql-server) is a wrapper that works as a standard [sysVinit](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/sysvinit) script. However, it can be used independently of [sysVinit](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/sysvinit) as a regular `sh` script. The script starts the [mariadbd](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-options) server process by first changing its current working directory to the MariaDB install directory and then starting [mariadbd-safe](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mariadbd-safe). The script requires the standard [sysVinit](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/sysvinit) arguments, such as `start`, `stop`, and `status`. See [mysql.server](https://mariadb.com/docs/server/server-management/starting-and-stopping-mariadb/mysql-server) for more information.

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