How do I change the booting order of services?

Anders Häggström hagge.ubuntu at intercorner.net
Tue May 29 14:09:15 BST 2007


2007/5/29, Dave Kempe <dave at solutionsfirst.com.au>:
> Whats the problem you are actually trying to solve? I haven't seen a
> great use for runlevels for a long time, for general server usage.
> This is one of the key differences between Redhat and Debian and strikes
> back to an argument held long ago on Debian mailing lists, which
> effectively means that runlevels as you know them don't really exist in
> Debian at all. Basically, the Debian way, (if I may be so bold as to say
> i know what it is), is that if you want the package to run, install it
> and it will run. If you don't want it, don't install it.
>
> If you want it to start when you ask it to, and not by default, consult
> update-rc.d.

My problem to solve is to group services and start them group-by-grup.
And in SysV I use runlevel as groups.
Frist gruop is "single-user mode"
Second is diskmounts and a webif
Third group is all the services.

This way I can stopp all services and unmount the volumes, but still
have the webif running in an easy way.

>
> upstart replaces init, and will eventually replace init.d scripts.
> However you need to understand the heritage and source of the packages
> in order to grasp how long this is going to take... its not that simple
> on the whole, and effectively widens the fork between Debian and Ubuntu
> larger than is justified.
>
> For servers and even embedded things, I have found upstart to be a great
> replacement for rc.local hacks and /etc/inittab hacks, and would gladly
> see it extended to replace all the init scripts and cron itself
> eventually. This is going to take some time :)

Yes, Upstart is a great replacement for init and cron, when it is
fully implemented. It is not atm, and therefor confuses more then it
provides.


2007/5/29, Soren Hansen <sh at linux2go.dk>:
> On Sun, May 27, 2007, Anders Häggström wrote:
> > The normal way is to edit /etc/initrc and change the name/number of
> > the scripts in /etc/rcX.d/
>
> Define "normal" :)   The way it's always been in Ubuntu (and Debian for
> as long as I can remember, and unless I'm much mistaken, also RedHat,
> Solaris, and HP-UX) is to have /etc/inittab that instructs init to do
> certain things.  Among them, it calls upon /etc/init.d/rc to go through
> the relevant /etc/rc?.d directory and start/stop services.

What you just described is what I call "the normal way". You say more
or less just the same as I did, exept that I said /etc/initrc instead
of /etc/inittab by mistake.

> In Ubuntu, we now use upstart instead of sysvinit by default. We still
> use the symlinks in /etc/rc?.d to determine the order in which we start
> things. The things that used to be done by init itself, e.g. setting up
> the virtual terminals and such, is now done by upstart at the start of
> runlevel 2.

Yes, and again. Upstart is not fully implemented and therefor causes
more confusion then benefits.

> > but I have no initrc-file and I've read something about upstart not
> > using the normal way to start up the system. Is that correct?
>
> Upstart provides a more intelligent way of starting/stopping/respawning
> things than sysvinit, but we currently use very little of that
> functionality.
>

Yes, exactly. We don't use the benefits of Upstart. Just change use it
the same way init is used and therefor it doesn't add much of the
fancy functions you speak about. This had been a non-situation if
Upstart was held back in the development area till it was more or less
fully implemented, and by a new release change init, cron and maby
other daemons with Upstart all at once, or just keep init as default
untill Upstart better handle the situation.

// Anders



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