How to check a service is running or not in Linux?

This is a small "How to" for checking a service is running in the server or not.

Some times we need to check the status of a service if it is running or not to cross verify something on server. Suppose you have edited your httpd.conf file and when restarting the service it just show start service is on. But when you try to get access to the web site the site is down. At that time we can use below command to check if Apache service is running or not..

Syntax:

Method 1: Using service command

#service servicename status

Example:

#service httpd status

clipped output of the above command

httpd (pid 7474) is running...

Method 2: Using init.d scripts which are located in /etc/init.d folder

Example:

/etc/init.d/cron status

Clipped output of init.d script:

cron start/running, process 1253

Method3: Using status command to check if the service is running or not

Example:

status atd

Output:

atd start/running, process 1245

To check all the services state at a time use below command

#service --status-all

Note: Please make a note that due to formating –status-all is shown as -status-all

Please comment on this if you have any other way to check the status of a service.