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init

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Updated: 2011-04-06
Index Return to Main Contents

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NAME

init - Upstart process management daemon  

SYNOPSIS

init [OPTION]...  

DESCRIPTION

init is the parent of all processes on the system, it is executed by the kernel and is responsible for starting all other processes; it is the parent of all processes whose natural parents have died and it is responsible for reaping those when they die.

Processes managed by init are known as jobs and are defined by files in the /etc/init directory. See init(5) for more details on configuring Upstart.  

Events

init(8) is an event-based init daemon. This means that jobs will be automatically started and stopped by changes that occur to the system state, including as a result of jobs starting and stopping.

This is different to dependency-based init daemons which start a specified set of goal jobs, and resolve the order in which they should be started and other jobs required by iterating their dependencies.

For more information on starting and stopping jobs, as well as emitting events that will automatically start and stop jobs, see the manual page for the initctl(8) tool.

The primary event is the startup(7) event, emitted when the daemon has finished loading its configuration. Other useful events are the starting(7), started(7), stopping(7) and stopped(7) events emitted as jobs change state.

See upstart-events(7) for a summary of well-known events.  

System V compatibility

The Upstart init(8) daemon does not keep track of runlevels itself, instead they are implemented entirely by its userspace tools. The event emitted to signify a change of runlevel is the runlevel(7) event. For more information see its manual page.  

OPTIONS

Options are passed to init(8) by placing them on the kernel command-line.

--confdir directory

Read job configuration files from a directory other than /etc/init.

--default-console value

Default value for jobs that do not specify a 'console' stanza. This could be used for example to set the default to 'none' but still honour jobs that specify explicitly 'console log'. See init(5) for all possible values of console.

--logdir directory

Write job output log files to a directory other than /var/log/upstart.

--no-log

Disable logging of job output. Note that jobs specifying 'console log' will be treated as if they had specified 'console none'. See init(5) for further details.

--no-sessions

Disable user and chroot sessions.

--no-startup-event

Suppress emission of the initial startup event. This option should only be used for testing since it will stop the init(8) daemon from starting any jobs automatically.

--session

Connect to the D-Bus session bus. This should only be used for testing.

--startup-event event

Specify a different initial startup event from the standard startup(7).

--verbose

Outputs verbose messages about job state changes and event emissions to the system console or log, useful for debugging boot.

 

NOTES

init is not normally executed by a user process, and expects to have a process id of 1. If this is not the case, it will actually execute telinit(8) and pass all arguments to that. See that manual page for further details.  

FILES

/etc/init.conf

/etc/init/*.conf

$HOME/.init/  

AUTHOR

Written by Scott James Remnant <scott@netsplit.com>  

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs at <https://launchpad.net/upstart/+bugs>  

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2009-2011 Canonical Ltd.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  

SEE ALSO

control-alt-delete(7) init(5) initctl(8) runlevel(7) startup(7) starting(7) started(7) stopping(7) stopped(7) telinit(8) upstart-events(7)

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Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Events

System V compatibility

OPTIONS

NOTES

FILES

AUTHOR

REPORTING BUGS

COPYRIGHT

SEE ALSO

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