An abstract class is a way to create a base class you don't need your developers instantiating directly because, usually, there is still missing code from it, like, methods were not fully implemented. So you create an abstract which implements the common methods of your concrete restart classes
abstract class Restart {
public function restart() {
}
}
And then you implement one by one of those classes extending your abstract and creating the missing methods:
class AppOneRestart extends Restart implements RestartInterface {
public function start() {
}
public function stop() {
}
}
Option 1
If your whole application can use a single implementation of it and you just need the ability to swap from one to another, because your business somehow changed, a simple binding will do the trick:
App::bind('RestartInterface', 'AppOneRestart');
Option 2
If during a request you might need one or another, you probably will need to implement the Factory pattern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_method_pattern, so you inject the factory in your controller:
class RestartApiController extends Controller {
public function __construct(RestartFactory $factory)
{
$this->restart = $factory->make('api');
}
}