Re: debian init.d scripts

[Ian Zimmerman <itz@speakeasy.org>]

Karsten> S is single user.  Same as '1'.

This is not quite right.

S is the real single-user level.  1 OTOH is used just as a way-station
from multiuser to kill all the multiuser services before entering S
with clean slate.  If you say "init S" in multiuser you will end up
with a root password prompt because all the getties will be killed
(being under direct control of init), but the services will stay up.

If you look at /etc/init.d/rcS (the script that init executes when
entering S) you'll see that _all_ the sub-scripts in /etc/rcS.d/ are
run with "start" as a parameter - which means rcS _never_ kills
anything.  If you do "init 1" /etc/init.d/rc is run instead, which
knows how to kill the services by calling sub-scripts with a "stop"
parameter.  The last sub-script then does "init S".

I don't know why it is done this way; it looks like an ugly hack to
me.  I'd just have rcS work the same way as rc (indeed they should be
the same script).  Ask me when I am a developer :)

-- 
Ian Zimmerman, Oakland, California, U.S.A.
EngSoc adopts market economy: cheap is wasteful, efficient is expensive.