Re: how to boot into single user mode?

[joost@pc47.mpn.cp.philips.com]

Hi,

This is explained in the manpage for init(1).

Quoting man init:

---cut---
BOOTFLAGS
       It  is possible to pass a number of flags to init from the
       boot monitor (eg. LILO). Init accepts the following flags:

       S, single
            Single  user  mode boot. In this mode /etc/inittab is
            examined and the bootup rc scripts  are  usually  run
            before the single user mode shell is started.

       1-5  Runlevel to boot into.

       -b, emergency
            Boot  directly  into a single user shell without run
            ning any other startup scripts.
---cut---

In LILO, this means that you have to specify the image that you want to
boot (most likely called linux, but actually depends on the entries in 
your /etc/lilo.conf) and add additional parameters to init to that.

So, if you have two boot target images defined in /etc/lilo.conf, one
called linux and one called linux.old, you could boot the kernel specified
by linux.old into runlevel 2 by typing to the "LILO:" prompt:

  linux.old 2

Cheers,


Joost