Recipe 7.5. Managing Debian's Runlevels
7.5.1 Problem
You need to manage what services
start up at boot on a Debian system, on each runlevel, because when
you install new services, such as Apache, Exim, or OpenSSH, Debian
configures them to start at boot. You're still
testing things, so you want to start/stop them manually. Or you want
different services to start on different runlevels during testing.
7.5.2 Solution
Use the
update-rc.d command. This example adds a new
service, the KDE Display Manager, to runlevel 5.
kdm is the name of a startup file in
/etc/init.d. There must be a trailing dot ending
the runlevels list:
# update-rc.d kdm start 99 5 . stop 01 0 1 2 3 4 6 .
This command removes a service from all runlevels. Removal is all or
nothing; you cannot be selective:
# update-rc.d -f kdm remove
Changing the runlevels for an existing service is a two-step process:
first remove it, then add it back to the levels in which you want it
to run. Be sure to make an entry for every service on every runlevel,
either stop or start.
7.5.3 Discussion
Remember, update-rc.d operates on the script
names in /etc/init.d. You can test-drive the
update-rc.d commands with the
-n option, which means "not
really":
# update-rc.d -f -n kdm remove
You can delete init.d scripts if you really
really want to, with the remove option:
# update-rc.d —purge kdm remove
But it's usually better to leave them in place,
because you may want them again.
7.5.4 See Also
| 
