In many cases, network configuration makes it necessary to run several daemons: dhcp, zeroconf, ppp, openvpn and such. They need to be controlled, and in many cases you also want to babysit them. runsvdir is a good tool for this. examples/var_service directory provides a few examples. It is meant to be used this way: copy it somewhere (say, /var/service) and run something like env - PATH=... runsvdir /var/service & from one of system startup scripts. (Google "man runsvdir" and "man runsv" for more info about these tools). Some existing examples: var_service/dhcp_if - controls a udhcpc instance which provides dhpc-assigned IP address on interface named "if". Copy/rename this directory as needed to run udhcpc on other interfaces (var_service/dhcp_if/run script uses _foo suffix or the parent directory as interface name). When IP address is obtained or lost, var_service/dhcp_if/dhcp_handler is run. It saves new config data to /var/run/service/fw/dhcp_if.ipconf and (re)starts /var/service/fw service. var_service/ifplugd_if - watches link status of interface if. Downs and ups /var/service/dhcp_if service accordingly. In effect, it allows you to unplug/plug-to-different-network and have your IP properly re-negotiated at once. var_service/dhcp_if_pinger - Uses var_service/dhcp_if's data (/var/service/dhcp_if/dhcp_if.out file) to determine router IP. Pings it. If ping fails, restarts /var/service/dhcp_if service. Basically, an example of watchdog service for networks which are not reliable and need babysitting. var_service/fw - An *one-shot* service which reconfigures network based on current known state of ALL interfaces. Uses conf/*.ipconf (static config) and /var/run/service/fw/*.ipconf (dynamic config from dhcp/ppp/vpn/etc) to determine what to do. One-shot-ness of this service means that it shuts itself off after single run. However, any dhcp/ppp/vpn or similar service can restart it anytime when it senses the change in network configuration. This even works while fw service runs: if dhcp signals fw to (re)start while fw runs, fw will not stop after its execution, but will re-execute once, picking up dhcp's new configuration. This is achieved very simply by having # Make ourself one-shot sv o . at the very beginning of fw/run script, not at the end. Therefore, any "sv u /var/run/service/fw" command by any other script "undoes" o(ne-shot) command if fw still runs, thus runsv will rerun it; or start it in a normal way if fw is not running. System administrators are expected to edit fw/run script, since network configuration needs are likely to be very complex and different for non-trivial installations.