Hi !

I have a bunch of cloned virtualized Qemu relative machines.
Some of them need X to be started.
My idea was to check the MAC address, and if the test is OK, launch telinit 4 from within rc.local .

I would say it is not a good idea -that's what runlevels are for. Either change the default entry in /etc/inittab or add 'init 4' to the kernel boot parameters. Doing it this, the Right Way, will allow you to access the box in runlevel 3 in case something happens and the GUI won't come up.

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Starting at runlevel 3 then typing startx once or twice a day (laptop used as a desktop) is good enough for me

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Why is it not a good idea ?

Is there another way to do that ?

Edit /etc/inittab and change this section:

to:

I'd like to do it dynamically.

The machine starts to init 3 by default.

In the rc.local I make a test. If the test is ok, then i would like to go init 4.

What do you mean by this?

I have a read-only Qemu image with a test script launched by rc.local .
I create many relative images with different MAC addresses.
For some MAC addresses, I'd like the relative machines to start graphically.

The usual and right way to change startup runlevel was mentioned. Now for the reason why not to use rc.local to change it. Take a look at the output of

You will see that its get called in every (multiuser) runlevel. Thus you normaly start into runlevel 3 call rc.local this switches runlevel to 4 which calls rc.local which changes runlevel to 4 which calls rc.local. If telnit actually changes the runlevel if it allready is in the level it ought to change to I do not know. Worse case you have an infinite loop, best case you just change the runlevel. Or you have a script that checks if the runlevel is allready where its ought to be and skips the change of runlevel.

Nother thing to check on if rc.local really is the last thing called in the appropiate runlevel.

You could change init. It's not an awfully complicated program.

Put the test at the start of /etc/rc.d/rc.4. Exit if the MAC doesn't match your list. Set /etc/inittab to 4.

Ok, the loop may be bad ^^.

Neat trick, Richard !

With the rc.4 trick, I have an annoying "respawn" message coming in the console. I tried to get rid of this without success.

Bad advice on my part. You shouldn't exit rc.4, but stay in it; the display managers that are launched aren't running as daemons.

So instead of exiting, run in a while loop with a sleep like so...

Oh, the tangled web we weave, when first we practice to...