FSU

Booting Unix

UNIX/Linux Kernel initialization

Linux booting

Linux provides a flexible multi-operating system boot loader named grub (GRand Unified Bootloader) that can be used to boot different operating systems. Like Windows bootloaders, it can also sit on the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the boot device and transfer control to specific operating system kernels depending on either a user type-in or a default. Grub's behavior is controlled by /boot/grub/grub.conf.

Previously, there were syslinux/extutils and lilo, which are still seen occasionally, and even older, the loadlin program which used DOS to boot Linux.

Grub2 is pretty much the standard.

Linux booting

Here's a grub configuration file on a Linux Mint 17.1 machine:

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

Linux booting

Here's a grub configuration file on a Linux Mint 17.1 machine:


# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

Linux booting

(continued) Here's a grub configuration file on a Linux Mint 17.1 machine:

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

UNIX/Linux init and bootup scripts

UNIX/Linux init and bootup scripts

UNIX/Linux init and bootup scripts

init: UNIX/Linux bootup scripts

init: UNIX/Linux bootup scripts

The idea is that soft-links that start with a capital ``S'' are executed at startup; soft-links with a leading capital ``K'' are executed at shutdown (you can see this behavior in /sbin/rc2 on Solaris and /etc/rc.d/rc on RedHat).

The Linux init package includes a nifty utility named runlevel that you can run to determine the current machine's run level.

init: UNIX bootup scripts

Notice the location of the actual startup shell scripts can vary (/etc, /etc/rc.d, etc.), even between different versions of UNIX. For instance, Solaris: /etc/rc?.d (/etc/rc2.d is typical), CentOS Linux: /etc/rc.d

init: UNIX/Linux Controlling init link sprawl

On some systems, you can use chkconfig to control the maze of links.

# chkconfig --list   # show what is on and what is off for runlevels
anacron        	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
atd            	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
atieventsd     	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:off	4:off	5:on	6:off
auditd         	0:off	1:off	2:on	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off
autofs         	0:off	1:off	2:off	3:on	4:on	5:on	6:off

# chkconfig --level 2345 sendmail on    # have sendmail start 2345

# chkconfig --del sendmail      # remove sendmail from chkconfig management
# chkconfig --add sendmail      # add sendmail to chkconfig management

The systemd approach

Typical problems with UNIX booting

Upshot

Upshot

Many versions of UNIX/Linux SYSV implementations choose to use symbolic links between a common script directory and the particular runlevel directory. Treat any modifications to the startup shell scripts as you would any other program -- edit, test (reboot), document, debug until it works.

Upshot

In a major site, you may find that weekly reboots at an off time (such as early on Sunday morning) are automatically done to discover any bad interactions among boot modifications that might have been made recently.