Information about services, including dependencies, methods, state, and application data, is stored in the service configuration repository as a set of properties. Properties can be defined on either the service or an instance of the service. Properties that are set on the service are inherited by all instances of that service. Properties that are set on an instance are used only by that instance. Service instances can customize the values of inherited properties and can define additional properties that are not defined for the parent service.
Properties are organized into property groups. Some common property groups include:
general – Contains information such as whether the instance is enabled
restarter – Contains runtime information that is stored by the restarter for the service, including the current state of the instance
start, refresh, stop – Contains information such as which program to execute to start, refresh, or stop the service
config – Used by service developers to hold application data.
See the smf (5) man page for more information about properties and property groups.