Controlling the FoundationDB service (i.e. start/stop/restart) doesn't work well in Linux

I've noticed that on multiple occasions, my attempts to control the FoundationDB service have silently failed. Often, I can get them to work if I rerun the command a second or third time.

I've seen this on my machine running Ubuntu 16.04, and it appears that others have encountered this as well (see for example https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/whats-the-best-procedure-for-exposing-a-public-port/622).