Difference between /etc/rc.d/init.d/ and /etc/init.d/

techstar25 · 10-04-2006, 11:47 AM

Subject line pretty much says it all.

Why do both exist? What's the differnce between the /etc/rc.d/init.d/ and /etc/init.d/. They seems to contain the same files. However all the links in my /etc/rc5.d/ point to /etc/init.d/.

This is RHEL Release 4 Update 3, by the way.

Thanks!

druuna · 10-04-2006, 12:16 PM

Hi,

A lot of distro's had/have their own/different naming schema. The last few years I see a tendency toward wanting to conform to standards, but they also want to be backward compatible. That's why the 'double' inet.d is there and all the links exist.

'The standard recommends' ( not starting a flame here

) the /etc/rc.d/init.d structure, I believe that /etc/init.d is RH's 'old' structure.

Hope this helps.

reddazz · 10-05-2006, 04:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by druuna

Hi,

A lot of distro's had/have their own/different naming schema. The last few years I see a tendency toward wanting to conform to standards, but they also want to be backward compatible. That's why the 'double' inet.d is there and all the links exist.

'The standard recommends' ( not starting a flame here

) the /etc/rc.d/init.d structure, I believe that /etc/init.d is RH's 'old' structure.

Hope this helps.

I don't think /etc/init.d is RH's old structure since other distros (even those not connected to Redhat) use this convention instead of /etc/rcX.d. On Gentoo, Suse, Debian and Arch, /etc/init.d seems to be where most startup scripts are placed and there are no /etc/rcX.d directories on most of these distros.