Re: runlevels [was Re: Upcoming Debian Releases]
On 23 May 1997, Milan Zamazal wrote:
> I know nothing about runlevel standards, just my opinions:
Same here.
> >>>>> "AK" == Alexander Koch <efraim@desire.camelot.de> writes:
>
> AK: level 1 is without net, 2 is with it all (imo including nfs
> AK: and the like) and 3 is xdm, 6 was shutdown or halt or
> AK: whatsoever. at least that i remember from some german
> AK: distribution.
>
> I'm no big sysadmin but I think we can use all 1 to 4 levels. One
> free runlevel could be enough (in actually, if *I* need some
> modifications, I make them by modifying existing runlevels not
> creating new ones).
>
> AK: default runlevel is 2 so why should nfs start with 3?
>
> I'd like something similar to:
> 1: single user
> 2: multiuser with minimal networking, probably without offering services
> 3: full networking (NFS, xfs, anonymous ftp, ...)
> 4: xdm? (yes, it is common on Slackware and RedHat to start xdm
> according to runlevel, but maybe Debian /etc/X11/config concept is
> better)
No, we don't need xdm in runlevel 4. A better solution would be this (but
it is more difficult, requires multiple inetd.conf files):-
2: multiuser, minimal networking, no networking daemons (including inetd).
3: multiuser, "client" networking (rpc.ugidd, ident, etc.)
4: multiuser, "server" networking (ftp, http, finger, etc.)
> 5: empty for making special local runlevel?
Yes, good idea.
> So if I want to do something without being too used from outer world,
> I can switch to level 2 (and I can still telnet or ftp somewhere).
>
> AK: if 3 gets xdm, perhaps gpm should be disabled and the like?
>
> Remark: gpm should be disabled only when it doesn't work as a
> repeater.
It doesn't need to be disabled, it just saves memory. It will detect when
X starts up, and give up its own handling of the mouse. Only PS/2 mouse
devices used cause a major problem with this (single-open only), but they
don't do that any more IIRC.
> BTW, I don't like RedHat concept of empty level *4*. When I upgraded
> HW on some RedHat machine, I lowered default level from 5 to 4 in
> expection it will disable just xdm. Then I spent an hour looking for
> explanation, why many services don't start after changing HW. After I
> explored runlevel 4 was empty, I was far from being polite...
Agreed.
I think a better way than doing runlevels directly in packages, though,
may be to set a package startup script's "type" - minnet, netclient,
netserver, misc, etc. Then, define runlevels to include certain "types"
of script. Just an idea (very difficult to implement with symlinks for
/etc/rc?.d), what does anyone else think?
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