Which command can be used to stop a currently running service?

The command used to stop a currently running service in a Linux environment that uses systemd is systemctl stop. This command specifically instructs the system to terminate the specified service.

When you execute systemctl stop <service-name>, it sends a command to the system's service manager (systemd) to stop the service gracefully, freeing up system resources and ensuring that any ongoing tasks the service was handling are completed or terminated properly.

In contrast, the command to start a service (systemctl start) initiates a service and is not relevant when the goal is to stop a service. The command for checking the status of a service (systemctl status) provides information about whether the service is currently active, its last start time, and other statistics, but it does not perform any action to stop it. Lastly, systemctl restart combines both stopping and starting a service; it first stops the service and then starts it again, which is not the desired action when looking solely to stop it.