RH131 Unit1 System Initialization

Objectives

Upon completion of this unit, you should be able to:

- Discuss the boot sequece

- Understand GRUB’s role

- Understand init’s role

- Control System V services

Boot Sequence Overview

BIOS Initialization

Boot Loader

Kernel initialization

init starts and enters desired run level by executing:

- /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

- /etc/rc.d/rc and /etc/rc.d/rc?.d/

- /etc/rc.d/rc.local

- X display manager if appropriate

Boot Loader Components

Boot Loader

- 1st Stage – smalll, reside in MBR or boot sector

- 2nd Stage – loaded from boot partition

Minimum specifications for Linux:

- Label, kernel location, OS root filesystem and location of the initial ramdisk(initrd)

Minimum specification for other OS:

- boot device, label

GRUB and grub.conf

GRUB “the GRand Unified Bootloader”

- Command-line interface available at boot prompt

- Boot from ext2/ext3, ReiserFS, JFS, FAT, minix, or FFS file systems

- Supports MD5 password protection

/boot/grub/grub.conf

Changes to grub.conf take effect immediately

If MBR on /dev/hda is corrupted, reinstall the first stage bootloader with: /sbin/grub-install /dev/hda

Starting the Boot Process: GRUB

Image selection

- Select with space followed by up/down arrows on the boot splash screen

Argument passing

- Change an existing stanzain menu editing mode

- Issue boot commands interactively on the GRUB command line

Kernel Initialization

- Device detection

- Device driver initialization

- Mounts root filesystem read only

- Loads initial process (init)

init Initialization

init reads its config: /etc/inittab

- initial run level

- system initialization scripts

- run level specific script directories

- trap certain key sequences

- define UPS power fail/ restore scripts

- spawn getty on virtual consoles

- initialize X in run level 5

Run Levels

init defines run levels 0-6, S, emergency

The run level is selected by either

- the default in /etc/inittab at boot

- passing an argument from the boot loader

- using the command init new_runlevel

Show current and previous run levels: /sbin/runlevel

/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

Important tasks include:

- Activate udev and selinux

- Sets kernel parameters in /etc/sysctl.conf

- Sets the system clock

- Loads keymaps

- Enables swap partitions

- Set hostname

- Root filesystem check and remount

- Activate RAID and LVM device

- Enable disk quotas

- Check and mount other filesystems

- Cleans up stale locks and PID files

/etc/rc.d/rc

Initializes the default run level per the /etc/inittabe file initdefault line such as id:3:initdefault:

10:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0

11:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1

12:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2

13:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3 (default)

14:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4

15:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5

16:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

System V run levels

Run level defines which services to start

- Each run level has a correponding directory: /etc/rc.d/rcX.d

- The system V init script reside in: /etc/rc.d/init.d

- Symbolic links in the run level directories call the init.d scripts with a start or stop argument

/etc/rc.d/rc.local

Run after the run level specific scripts

Common place for custom modification

In most cases it is recommended that you create a System V init script in

/etc/rc.d/init.d unless the service you are starting is so trivial it doesn’t warrant it. Existing scripts can be used as a starting point

Controlling Services

Utilities to control servcie startup

- system-config-services: graphical utility that requires an X interface

- ntsysv: ncurses based utility usable in virtual consoles

- chkconfig: a fast, versatile command line utility that works well and is usable with scripts and Kickstart installations

Utilities to control service manually

- service: immediately start or stop a standalone service

- chkconfig: immediately starts and stops xinetd-managed services

End of Unit1

Questions and Answers

Summary

- System BIOS

- GRUB

- init

- chkconfi and service