Ubuntu – Why does terminal auto complete sometimes not suggest anything for the `services` command

auto-completionbashvsftpd

Sometimes, when I type a command on the terminal, the terminal's autocomplete does not work, even if my command is not wrong.

For example, take look to this: sudo service vsftpd status sudo and service do not have any problem. I mean, when you type sud +tab terminal suggest you sudo or I type servi + tab terminal complete that to service. But for vsftpd I do not get any suggestion. Is there a way to say, "terminal, please tell me any suggestion!!?".

Best Answer

The degree to which auto-completion works is a function of how well the shell scripts in the bash-completion package work.

In Ubuntu 14.04, the script that handles completions for service is in /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion. It looks for service names as files in /etc/rc.d/init.d and /etc/init.d, and in the output of systemctl list-units --full --all.

But installing the vsftpd package doesn't put any files in /etc/init.d, because it has been systemd-ified; it puts a config file in /etc/systemd/system/vsftpd.service. systemctl list-units would find that file if not for the fact that Ubuntu, at the present time, doesn't include a systemctl command.

So, at the moment, you won't get auto-completions for service vsftpd, but you will for most other services, since their config files are in /etc/init.d.

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