init question

[shadowc]

Hi, I'm trying to understand the bootup process for fedora and I been looking at some of the sample /etc/inittab files .

I understand the system run level and the rc scripts but I'm no so sure what gettys are.

In the inittab file it looks like this:

l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6


Looking at this it seems that it was created by the id:3:initdefault entry. Are these fields similar to the rc startup scripts in the initab file?

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

Thanks for your help.

[jweekley1]

gettys or minigetty are virtual consoles/terminals. for example on most linux installs tty7 runs your x window. hope that helps.

[shadowc]

Thanks for the info. I understand now.

[valan]

l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

Been awhile since I messed with init type stuff, but IIRC these point to the script to run when switching runlevels. For example, when going to runlevel 4, it will execute the command '/etc/rc.d/rc 4' which will take the system out of whatever runlevel it is in and put it into runlevel 4.

As for what getty is and does, Wikipedia has a nice description

[hazel]

Don't want to blow my own trumpet but I did a thing once for my local computer club (all Windows users!) on how Linux starts up. It's very Red Hat-orientated because I was using Red Hat at the time. I could mail you a copy if you're interested.