(debian-policy.info)Running initscripts

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9.3.3.2 Running initscripts
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The program ‘invoke-rc.d’ is provided to make it easier for package
maintainers to properly invoke an initscript, obeying runlevel and other
locally-defined constraints that might limit a package’s right to start,
stop and otherwise manage services.  This program may be used by
maintainers in their packages’ scripts.

The package maintainer scripts must use ‘invoke-rc.d’ to invoke the
‘/etc/init.d/*’ initscripts or equivalent, instead of calling them
directly.

By default, ‘invoke-rc.d’ will pass any action requests (start, stop,
reload, restart…) to the ‘/etc/init.d’ script, filtering out requests to
start or restart a service out of its intended runlevels.

Most packages will simply use:

     invoke-rc.d package action

in their ‘postinst’ and ‘prerm’ scripts.

A package should register its initscript services using ‘update-rc.d’
before it tries to invoke them using ‘invoke-rc.d’.  Invocation of
unregistered services may fail.

For more information about using ‘invoke-rc.d’, please consult its man
page, invoke-rc.d(8).

It is easiest for packages not to call ‘invoke-rc.d’ directly, but
instead use debhelper programs that add the required ‘invoke-rc.d’ calls
automatically.  See ‘dh_installinit’, ‘dh_installsystemd’, etc.