At any particular time, an SMF service instance is in one of the following states:
degraded – The instance is running or available to run, but is functioning at a limited capacity.
disabled – The instance is not enabled and is not running or available to run.
maintenance – The instance is enabled but not able to run. The instance might be transitioning through the maintenance state because an administrative action has not yet completed. Otherwise, administrative action is required to resolve the problem.
offline – The instance is enabled but not running or available to run. For example, if the dependencies of an enabled service are not satisfied, the service is kept in the offline state.
online – The instance is enabled and running or available to run. The online state is the expected operating state for a correctly configured service instance with all dependencies satisfied.
uninitialized – This state is the initial state for all services.
A service instance transitions between states depending on conditions such as administrative actions or the state of its dependent services. For example, when you enable an instance that was in the disabled state, the newly-enabled instance first transitions into the offline state, and transitions into the online state when all of its dependencies are satisfied. See the smf (5) man page for more information about these service states and about how service instances transition through these states.