Jake Graft pointed out in a comment that I had forgotten to put the init script from the MythTV book online. My apologies.
#! /bin/sh # # mythbackend # PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin BACKEND=/usr/local/bin/mythbackend BACKEND_NAME=mythbackend MYTHUSER="myth" test -x $BACKEND || exit 0 set -e case "$1" in start) echo -n "Starting MythTV: $BACKEND_NAME" su ${MYTHUSER} -c "$BACKEND -v all -d -l ${MBE_LOGFILE}" & echo "." ;; stop) echo -n "Stopping MythTV: $BACKEND_NAME" killall $BACKEND echo "." ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop}" >&2 exit 1 ;; esac exit 0