This manpage documents only the usage and behaviour of update-rc.d. For a discussion of the System V style init script arrangements please see init(8) and the Debian Policy Manual.

INSTALLING INIT SCRIPT LINKS

Packages installing init.d scripts should make sure both methods work, for compatiblity with systems where the migration have not been done yet.

For legacy mode, the following section documents the old behaviour.

When run with either the defaults, start, or stop options, update-rc.d makes links /etc/rcrunlevel.d/[SK]NNname that point to the script /etc/init.d/name.

If any files /etc/rcrunlevel.d/[SK]??name already exist then update-rc.d does nothing. The program was written this way so that it will never change an existing configuration, which may have been customized by the system administrator. The program will only install links if none are present, i.e., if it appears that the service has never been installed before.

A common system administration error is to delete the links with the thought that this will "disable" the service, i.e., that this will prevent the service from being started. However, if all links have been deleted then the next time the package is upgraded, the package's postinst script will run update-rc.d again and this will reinstall links at their factory default locations. The correct way to disable services is to configure the service as stopped in all runlevels in which it is started by default. In the System V init system this means renaming the service's symbolic links from S to K.

If defaults is used then update-rc.d will make links to start the service in runlevels 2345 and to stop the service in runlevels 016. By default all the links will have sequence number 20, but this should be overridden if there are dependencies. For example if daemon B depends on A, then A must be started before B and B must be killed before A. You accomplish this by supplying two NN arguments. In general, core daemons should start early and be killed late, whilst applications can start late and be killed early. See EXAMPLES below.

The first NN argument supplies the start sequence number and the second NN argument supplies the kill sequence number. Kill scripts are called first, passing a stop argument. Then start scripts are called passing a start argument. In either case, calls happen in ascending sequence number order.

Supplying a single NN argument will use the same number for both start and kill links. This is supported for backward compatibility but is discouraged, as it may lead to inconsistent settings. As a rule of thumb, if you increase the start sequence number you should also decrease the stop sequence number, and vice-versa.

As a rule of thumb, the sequence number of the stop link should be 100 minus the sequence number of the start link; this causes services to be stopped in the opposite order to that in which they are started. Obviously, therefore, the default stop sequence number should be 80. Defaulting to 20, as update-rc.d does, is an old bug that cannot be fixed because of the risk of breaking things.

Instead of defaults one can give one or more sets of arguments specifying particular runlevels in which to start or stop the service. Each of these sets of arguments starts with the keyword start or stop and a sequence number NN, followed by one or more runlevel numbers. The set is terminated by a solitary full stop character. When explicit specification, rather than defaults, is used there will usually be one start and one stop set. If different sequence codes are required in different runlevels then several start sets or several stop sets may be specified. If this is done and the same runlevel is named in multiple sets then only the last one counts. Therefore it is not possible to create multiple start or multiple stop links for a service in a single runlevel directory.

The script /etc/init.d/name must exist before update-rc.d is run to create the links.

REMOVING SCRIPTS

update-rc.d is usually called from a package's post-removal script when that script is given the purge argument. Any files in the /etc/rcrunlevel.d directories that are not symbolic links to the script /etc/init.d/name will be left untouched.

DISABLING INIT SCRIPT START LINKS

When run with the enable [ S|2|3|4|5 ] options, update-rc.d modifies existing runlevel links for the script /etc/init.d/name by renaming stop links to start links with a sequence number equal to the positive difference of current sequence number minus 100, thus returning to the original sequence number that the script had been installed with before disabling it.

Both of these options only operate on start runlevel links of S, 2, 3, 4 or 5. If no start runlevel is specified after the disable or enable keywords, the script will attempt to modify links in all start runlevels.

OPTIONS

-n

Don't do anything, just show what we would do.

-f

Force removal of symlinks even if /etc/init.d/name still exists.

EXAMPLES

   update-rc.d foobar defaults
The equivalent dependency header would have start and stop
dependencies on $remote_fs and $syslog, and start in
runlevels 2-5 and stop in runlevels 0, 1 and 6.

   update-rc.d foobar start 20 2 3 4 5 . stop 20 0 1 6 .

   update-rc.d foobar start 30 2 3 4 5 . stop 70 0 1 6 .

   update-rc.d script_for_A defaults 80 20
   update-rc.d script_for_B defaults 90 10

   update-rc.d top_level_app defaults 98 02

   update-rc.d script_depends_on_svc20 defaults 21 19

   update-rc.d foobar remove

   update-rc.d -f foobar remove
   update-rc.d foobar stop 20 2 3 4 5 .

   update-rc.d foobar start 45 S . stop 31 0 6 .

   update-rc.d -f foobar remove
   update-rc.d foobar stop 45 S .

BUGS

FILES

/etc/init.d/

The directory containing the actual init scripts.

/etc/rc?.d/

The directories containing the links used by init and managed by update-rc.d.

/etc/init.d/skeleton

Model for use by writers of init.d scripts.

SEE ALSO