I'm writing an lsb init script (admittedly something I've never done from scratch) that launches a php script that daemonizes itself. The php script starts off like so: #!/usr/bin/env php <?php /* do some stuff */ It's then started like so in the init script: # first line is args to start-stop-daemon, second line is args to php-script start-stop-daemon --start --exec /path/to/executable/php-script.php \ -- --daemon --pid-file=$PIDFILE --other-php-script-args The --daemon flag causes the php script to detach & run as a daemon itself, rather than relying on start-stop-daemon to detach it. This is how it's (trying to) stop it in the init script: start-stop-daemon --stop --oknodo --exec /path/to/executable/php-script.php \ --pidfile $PIDFILE The problem is, when I try to stop via the init script, it gives me this: $ sudo /etc/init.d/my-lsb-init-script stop * Stopping My Project No /path/to/executable/php-script.php found running; none killed. ...done. A quick peek at ps tells me that, even though the php script itself is executable, its running as php <script> rather than the script name itself, which is keeping start-stop-daemon from seeing it. The PID file is even being generated, but it seems to ignore it and try to find+kill by process name instead. $ ps ax | grep '/path/to/executable/php-script.php' 2505 pts/1 S 0:01 php /path/to/executable/php-script.php --daemon --pid-file /var/run/blah/blah.pid --other-php-script-args 2507 pts/1 S 0:00 php /path/to/executable/php-script.php --daemon --pid-file /var/run/blah/blah.pid --other-php-script-args 2508 pts/1 S 0:00 php /path/to/executable/php-script.php --daemon --pid-file /var/run/blah/blah.pid --other-php-script-args 2509 pts/1 S 0:00 php /path/to/executable/php-script.php --daemon --pid-file /var/run/blah/blah.pid --other-php-script-args 2518 pts/1 S 0:01 php /path/to/executable/php-script.php --daemon --pid-file /var/run/blah/blah.pid --other-php-script-args $ cat /var/run/blah/blah.pid 2518 Am I completely misunderstanding something here? Or is there an easy way to work around this?