On Fri, Nov 16, 2007 at 08:16:35AM -0600, Randy Patterson - [Tech] wrote: > I've been using Debian/Linux for just less than year and have been > irreversibly hooked. I've been studying up on the boot and initialization of > the system and have a question about run levels. I know Debian defaults to > using run level 2. There is a comment in /etc/inittab that states; > > # Runlevels 2-5 are multi-user. > > When i look at how a process has been started (just for example apache). > > debian:/home/me# sysv-rc-conf --list | grep apache > apache2 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off > > Sure enough, apache has been started on all run levels 2-5. So here's my > question. On a default Debian system are all run levels 2-5 setup exactly the > same making no difference to the run level you chose to run in?
Yes. Read debian policy (available as a package). Debian leave run-level admin up to the administrator. In case you're familiar with other unixes, another gotcha: Debian, like other unixes, has what it calls single-user mode where only root can log in. On other unixes, only the root filesystem is mounted (on some, only in read-only mode). On debian, if you look at the scripts in /etc/rcS.d followed by /etc/rc1.d, you'll see that single-user mode gets you a fairly complete system with everything mounted, assuming that there aren't boot problems to begin with. However, if there aren't boot problems, why would you run single-user mode? So if you ever want a real unix single-user mode, the only way to get close in Debian is to use init=/bin/sh on the kernel command line so that init doesn't run and inittab doesn't come into effect. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
