Posted in: Linux

Linux OS Run Levels

When any Linux system boots, init is the first process to kick in which is responsible for running other processes/start scripts. These processes then take care of initialization of the hardware, networking etc.

Init process looks for the default run level in the /etc/inittab file and start scripts corresponding to the default run level.

0 – System halt state
1 – Single user text mode
2 – Multiple users, no NFS (network filesystem)
3 – Multiple users, command line (i.e., all-text mode) interface; the standard runlevel for most Linux-based server hardware.
4 – User-definable, not used much
5 – Multiple users, GUI (graphical user interface); the standard runlevel for most Linux-based desktop systems.
6 – Reboot; used when restarting the system.

Content of /etc/inittab file will look like below :

# cat /etc/inittab

# inittab is only used by upstart for the default runlevel.

#

# ADDING OTHER CONFIGURATION HERE WILL HAVE NO EFFECT ON YOUR SYSTEM.

#

# System initialization is started by /etc/init/rcS.conf

#

# Individual runlevels are started by /etc/init/rc.conf

#

# Ctrl-Alt-Delete is handled by /etc/init/control-alt-delete.conf

#

# Terminal gettys are handled by /etc/init/tty.conf and /etc/init/serial.conf,

# with configuration in /etc/sysconfig/init.

#

# For information on how to write upstart event handlers, or how

# upstart works, see init(5), init(8), and initctl(8).

#

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used are:

#   0 – halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)

#   1 – Single user mode

#   2 – Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)

#   3 – Full multiuser mode

#   4 – unused

#   5 – X11

#   6 – reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)

#

id:3:initdefault:

Here last line “id:3:initdefault:” shows that the default/current run level is 3 i.e. Multiuser mode

Startup scripts are defined under /etc/rc.d directory. Each Run-level has it’s own startup script :-

root [ /etc/rc.d ]# ls -l

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 16 12:51 init.d

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 29  2018 rc0.d      ========= Run level 0

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 29  2018 rc1.d      ========= Run level 1

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun  5 00:19 rc2.d      ========= Run level 2

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun  5 00:19 rc3.d      ========= Run level 3

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun  5 00:19 rc4.d      ========= Run level 4

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun  5 00:19 rc5.d      ========= Run level 5

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 29  2018 rc6.d      ========= Run level 6

To find the current run-level use below command :

# echo $RUNLEVEL

Linux systems that are using Systemd as default service manager, you can find the current run-level/target by below command :

# systemctl get-default

multi-user.target

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