Services startup?
 

Would someone be so kind as to post a quick overview as to where and how services get started when Linux boots up?

Thanks in advance!

In some distributions the actual services are contained in

/etc/rc.d/init.d

Symlinks to these services are contained in

/etc/rc.d/rcX.d

where X is the run level.

To start a service at a certain run level you need an S symlink in the relevant /etc/rc.d/rcX.d directory which points back to the actual service in /etc/rc.d/init.d - Kill symlinks are useful for stopping services when you change run levels - also - to stop a service from starting at a certain run level just take out the S symlink which points to the actual service.

your other option is to use the GUI under system tools-server settings-services and edit each runlevel as needed.

Cool, thanks for the replies guys! Can you tell me what the "rc" stands for?

From the UNIX FAQ:

rc (as in ".cshrc" or "/etc/rc") = "RunCom"

"rc" derives from "runcom", from the MIT CTSS system,
ca. 1965.

'There was a facility that would execute a bunch of
commands stored in a file; it was called "runcom" for "run
commands", and the file began to be called "a runcom."



I actually copied that from this thread.

Hmm, makes sense. Thanks for the quick reply! So how come when I tried to do a search on these forums for rc, I get no hits?