Re: Feedback needed: How to disable services at startup... and keep them so.

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:46:53 +0100, Jochem Kossen wrote:

On Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:46:53 +0100, Jochem Kossen wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 07, 2010 at 04:21:38PM +0000, Camale?n wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> A month ago, I disabled Network Manager service in my Squeeze system so
>> it doesn't run on start up. I wanted to keep NM installed (just in
>> case) but preferred to use the old "ifup" network setup method.
>> 
>> So I issued "update-rc.d network-manager remove" and also disabled
>> gnome NM applet from being started. So far so good, no more NM running
>> at booting.
> 
> Open the update-rc.d manpage, search for 'disable' and it says:
> 
> ==
> A common system administration error is to delete the links with the
> thought that this will "disable" the service, i.e., that this  will
> prevent the service  from being started.  However, if all links have
> been deleted then the next time the package is upgraded, the package¿s
> postinst script will run update-rc.d again and this will reinstall links
> at their factory default locations.
> 
> The correct way to disable services is to configure the service as
> stopped in all runlevels in which it  is started by default.  In the
> System V init system this means renaming the service¿s symbolic links
> from S to K. ==
> 
> You didn't disable network-manager. You removed the startup scripts
> which were correctly put back by the update.
> 
> Of course I only know this by being bitten by it several times in the
> past ;-)

Hum... good catch. Let's test it.

First, I set the defaults runlevels for the script:

root@debian:~# update-rc.d network-manager defaults 
update-rc.d: using dependency based boot sequencing

Then, by following the example provided in the manual page on how to
disable a service, I run:

root@debian:~# update-rc.d -f network-manager remove 
update-rc.d: using dependency based boot sequencing

And:

root@debian:~# update-rc.d network-manager stop 20 2 3 4 5 . 
update-rc.d: using dependency based boot sequencing 
update-rc.d: warning: network-manager start runlevel arguments (none) do not match LSB Default-Start values (2 3 4 5) 
update-rc.d: warning: network-manager stop runlevel arguments (2 3 4 5) do not match LSB Default-Stop values (0 1 6)

Now, I restart the system (rebooting...) and check for network manager
service, that should have been disabled:

test@debian:~$ /etc/init.d/network-manager status
NetworkManager is running.

But it is running.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón