To start CouchDB at boot and shut it down when the system goes down,
add the following lines to /etc/rc.local and /etc/rc.shutdown, respectively:

/etc/rc.local:

if [ -x ${TRUEPREFIX}/bin/couchdb ]; then
	echo -n ' couchdb'
	install -d -o _couchdb /var/run/couchdb
	su -l _couchdb -c "${TRUEPREFIX}/bin/couchdb -b -p \
	    /var/run/couchdb/couchdb.pid" >/dev/null
fi

/etc/rc.shutdown:

if [ -r /var/run/couchdb/couchdb.pid ]; then
	su -l _couchdb -c "${TRUEPREFIX}/bin/couchdb -d -p \
	    /var/run/couchdb/couchdb.pid" >/dev/null
fi