I'd like to add some more info on the subject: the rc.d script mechanism is extremely powerful and you can do many things with it, if you need them. Scripts are passed arguments like "start" and "stop" which you might want to handle (though "stop" is handled specially and by default, BSD's don't call "stop" unless specifically asked for; they send SIGTERM), they can automatically handle PID files so daemons are started and stopped "gracefully" without any special support from the applications or the script writer. It's an extraordinarily good subsystem.