-> > As I understand it, X86 hardware hardly ever uses anything but two
-> > levels. I know sun hardware actually makes significant use of the
-> > runlevels, but I am made to understand that nobody ever really bothered
-> > to implement any more than two different runlevels.
init runlevels and kernel runlevels are something different.
init runlevels have nothing to do with hardware.
-> Solaris does use runlevels a bit differently, but not vastly different:
-> on Solaris, run level 2 is for "things brought up when we want to play
-> nice on the network but aren't fully awake". So the "clienty" things
-> usually go in rc2.d (such as nfs.client) while the "serverish" things
-> (like nfs.server). From 'man init' on Slugaris:
->
-> 2 Put the system in multi-user mode. All multi-user
-> environment terminal processes and daemons are
-> spawned. This state is commonly referred to as
-> the multi-user state.
->
-> 3 Extend multi-user mode by making local resources
-> available over the network.
->
-> 4 Is available to be defined as an alternative
-> multi-user environment configuration. It is not
-> necessary for system operation and is usually not
-> used.
->
-> Does Solaris really distinguish greatly? Nope... the main difference on
-> my Suns is that rc3.d has nfs.server in it.
I really like this solaris differences and I really use it, especialy at
home...
runlevel 2 - multiuser without network services (also xinetd sendmail
probably sshd etc)
- very useful to upgrade, maintain, configure etc system while nothing from
outside can disturb you. Many consoles used (I use 8, debian's default is 6)
runlevel 1 - running minimum of programs, only onw console etc
- for some special actions - fixing, repairing systems, maybe upgrading some
exxential packages (although I already upgraded hot system in runlevel 3
with running network services - nothing special happened)
-> Unlike RH or other "popular" distributions, Debian does -not- distinguish
-> between the useful run levels (as opposed to the special ones like
-> on-the-way-up-or-down ones). Instead, it leaves the choice of the
-> differences to be up to the local administrator.
I think at least the level above should be accepted. Default runlevel after
first boot should be 2 (sysadmin should look at everything before connects
newly installed machine to the net) and then, if someone decides, change it
to 3 where all network services would run.
levels 4 and 5 could be left for user to configure; level 0 means halt,
level 6 reboot (the fastest way to shutdown/reboot system w/o users is to do
init 0 or 6)
--
Matus "fantomas" Uhlar, sysadmin at NEXTRA, Slovakia; IRCNET admin of *.sk
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; http://www.fantomas.sk/ ; http://www.nextra.sk/
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
