checking the status of a service in linux

In this example I want to see if SMB is running

Check the status:
/etc/init.d/smb status

I can restart a service with
/etc/init.d/smb stop
/etc/init.d/smb start

or simply
/etc/init.d/smb restart

Check if the service is set to start on boot up
chkconfig --list | grep smb

SELinux

SElinux can stop samba (and other things) from working. You can turn it off by running the following command as root
"setenforce 0"
This is not recommended as it disables other security features but no one seems to know how to create exceptions for SElinux. SElinux will start again after a reboot. To stop it starting on reboot
sudo vi /etc/selinux/config
change the line SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=permissive
Save your changes and that should be it.