Running Files at boot time

The rc.d System

Table of Contents

7.1. Basics

7.2. The rc.d Scripts

7.3. The Role of rcorder and rc.d Scripts

7.4. Additional Reading

NetBSD uses individual scripts for controlling services, similar to what System V and Linux use, but without runlevels. This chapter is an overview of the rc.d system and its configuration.

7.1. Basics

The system startup files reside in the /etc directory. They are:

• /etc/rc
• /etc/rc.conf
• /etc/rc.d/*
• /etc/rc.lkm
• /etc/rc.local
• /etc/rc.shutdown
• /etc/rc.subr
• /etc/defaults/*
• /etc/rc.conf.d/*

First, a look at controlling and supporting scripts (also documented in rc(8)).

• After the kernel has initialized all devices at startup, it starts init(8), which in turn runs /etc/rc.
• /etc/rc sorts the scripts in /etc/rc.d using rcorder(8) and then runs them in that order. See the rcorder(8) man page for details of how the order of rc.d scripts is determined.
• /etc/rc.subr contains common functions used by /etc/rc and various rc.d scripts.
• When shutting down the system with shutdown(8), /etc/rc.shutdown is run, which runs the scripts in /etc/rc.d in reverse order (as defined by rcorder(8)). Note that if you shut down the system using the halt(8)command, these scripts will not be run.

Additional scripts outside of the rc.d directory:

• /etc/rc.lkm loads or unloads Loadable Kernel Modules (LKMs). See modload(8) and /etc/rc.d/lkm[123].
• /etc/rc.local is almost the last script called at boot up. This script can be edited by the administrator to start local daemons that don't fit the rc.d model.

rc.d scripts are controlled by a central configuration file, /etc/rc.conf, which loads its default settings from /etc/defaults/rc.conf. If you want to change a default setting, do not edit /etc/defaults/rc.conf; instead, override the setting in /etc/rc.conf.
It is a good idea to read the rc.conf(5) man page to learn about the services that are available to you.
The following example shows how to enable the SSH daemon, which is disabled by default:

# cd /etc; grep ssh defaults/rc.conf
sshd=NO                 sshd_flags=""
# echo "sshd=YES" >> rc.conf

Now sshd(8) will be started automatically at system startup. The next section describes how to start and stop services at any time.
Last but not least, files can be created in the /etc/rc.conf.d/ directory to override the behavior of a given rc.d script without editing the script itself.

7.2. The rc.d Scripts

The actual scripts that control services are in /etc/rc.d. These scripts are automatically run at boot time, but they can be called manually if necessary. The following example shows how to start the SSH daemon that we enabled in the previous section:

# /etc/rc.d/sshd start
Starting sshd.

Later, if you wish to stop the SSH daemon, run the following command:

# /etc/rc.d/sshd stop
Stopping sshd.
Waiting for PIDS: 123.

The rc.d scripts take one of the following arguments:

• start
• stop
• restart
• status

Some scripts may support other arguments (e.g., “reload”), but every script will support at least the above commands.
As an example, after adding a new record to a named(8) database, the daemon can be told to reload its configuration files with the following command:

# /etc/rc.d/named reload
Reloading named config files.

Note that all of the commands discussed above will only take action if the particular service is enabled in /etc/rc.conf. It is possible to bypass this requirement by prepending “one” to the command, as in:

# /etc/rc.d/httpd onestart
Starting httpd.

The above command will allow you to start the httpd(8) service one time. To stop a service that has been started in this manner, pass “onestop” to the script.

7.3. The Role of rcorder and rc.d Scripts

The startup system of every Unix system determines, in one way or another, the order in which services are started. On some Unix systems this is done by numbering the files and/or putting them in separate run level directories. Solaris relies on wildcards like /etc/rc[23].d/S* being sorted numerically when expanded. Some simply put all the commands that should be started into a single monolithic script (this is the traditional BSD method, and is what NetBSD did before the rc.d system). On modern NetBSD this is done by the rc.d scripts and their contents. Please note that NetBSD does not have multiple runlevels as found in SysV-style systems like Solaris and Linux.

At the beginning of each rc.d script there is a series of commented out lines that have one of the following items in them:

• REQUIRE
• PROVIDE
• BEFORE
• KEYWORD

These describe the dependencies of that particular script and allow rcorder to easily work either “up” or “down” as the situation requires. As an example, here is the ordering information contained in /etc/rc.d/nfsd:

...
 PROVIDE: nfsd
 REQUIRE: rpcbind mountd
...

Here we can see that this script provides the “nfsd” service and that it requires “rpcbind” and “mountd” to be running first. The rcorder(8) utility is used at system startup time to read through all the rc.d scripts and determine the order in which they should be 

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1.Starting a job at unix startup.


The system startup files are located in /etc/rc2.d. You can add a file to this directory with the commands you want to run at system startup. Suppose you want to delete some temp files at system startup, you could put a file named TempFileDel in your /etc/rc2.d with the commands to delete your temporary files, so it'll run every time system 


usually, startup scripts are located in /etc/rc2.d, but this depends on the UNIX/Linux you run and your system's default run level.
But as always The script name must follow some rules:
- There are two kind of scripts, let's say: kill scripts and start scripts. Both stored in /etc/rcX.d.
- kill scripts are executed first, after that start scripts.
- kill scripts name must start with a "K".
- start sctipts name must start with a "S".
- Following the first letter, there must be a two digit number. This lets "rc" know the order for the execution of the sctrips. rc is the "master" script which calls the others. Have a look at your /etc/inittab.
- Finally, a name of your choice.


when "rc" calls this scripts it adds a parameter: start for "S" scripts and stop for "K" scripts. This allows you to use the same script for both operations, just using links.


Well, the UNIX boot process is a little bit more complicated, but for now that's enough.


In your case, you could create a scritp called TempFileDel (contuinuing with shreenmotor's example) which supports "start" and "stop" operations/parameters. For instance:
Code:
#!/bin/ksh
case $1 in
start)
   echo Removing file...
   rm /tmp/somefile;;
stop)
   echo bye!;;
esac


and then:


Code:
ln -s /path/to/TempFileDel /etc/rc2.d/S10TempFileDel
ln -s /path/to/TempFileDel /etc/rc2.d/K10TempFileDel