Debian Administration
System Administration Tips and Resources
Making scripts run at boot time with Debian
Posted by Steve on Mon 11 Oct 2004 at 13:01
Debian uses a Sys-V like init system for executing commands when the system runlevel changes - for example at bootup and shutdown time.
If you wish to add a new service to start when the machine boots you should add the necessary script to the directory /etc/init.d/. Many of the scripts already present in that directory will give you an example of the kind of things that you can do.
Here's a very simple script which is divided into two parts, code which always runs, and code which runs when called with "start" or "stop".
#! /bin/sh # /etc/init.d/blah # # Some things that run always touch /var/lock/blah # Carry out specific functions when asked to by the system case "$1" in start) echo "Starting script blah " echo "Could do more here" ;; stop) echo "Stopping script blah" echo "Could do more here" ;; *) echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/blah {start|stop}" exit 1 ;; esac exit 0
Once you've saved your file into the correct location make sure that it's executable "chmod 755 /etc/init.d/blah.
Then you need to add the appropriate symbolic links to cause the script to be executed when the system goes down, or comes up.
The simplest way of doing this is to use the Debian-specific command update-rc.d:
root@skx:~# update-rc.d blah defaults Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/blah ... /etc/rc0.d/K20blah -> ../init.d/blah /etc/rc1.d/K20blah -> ../init.d/blah /etc/rc6.d/K20blah -> ../init.d/blah /etc/rc2.d/S20blah -> ../init.d/blah /etc/rc3.d/S20blah -> ../init.d/blah /etc/rc4.d/S20blah -> ../init.d/blah /etc/rc5.d/S20blah -> ../init.d/blah
If you wish to remove the script from the startup sequence in the future run:
root@skx:/etc/rc2.d# update-rc.d -f blah remove update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/blah exists during rc.d purge (continuing) Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/blah ... /etc/rc0.d/K20blah /etc/rc1.d/K20blah /etc/rc2.d/S20blah /etc/rc3.d/S20blah /etc/rc4.d/S20blah /etc/rc5.d/S20blah /etc/rc6.d/K20blah
This will leave the script itself in place, just remove the links which cause it to be executed.
You can find more details of this command by running "man update-rc.d".
I could not agree more. I have no idea how exactly are those run-levels interpreted by the system.
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i am working on solaris 10 x86 .so could u help me in this.
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Too bad many other linux-solutions and independent projects in general suffer from the same syndrome... ;/
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It is best to use su as you suggested.
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If you don't like the old Debian init scripts you could try installing initng, also should improve boot times quite a lot although its mostly used by Gentooers but there seems to be Debian builds (At least some old ones in experimental).
http://www.initng.org/ - Seems down currently
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I do wish Debian would do away with the System V run level scheme, it's all a bit confusing. As I understand it some of the run levels aren't even used?! Gentoo has done away with it already, using "reboot", "nonetwork" etc. instead, it's a bit more intuitive.. as it happens the rc-update tool is much better too...
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