linux - boot level

Owned by Paul McCullough (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Nov 02, 2011Version comment
1 min read

Linux has 7 different run levels (or operating modes):

0 - System Halted

1 - Single User Mode
2 - Single User Mode with Networking
3 - Multi-User Mode - boot up in text mode
4 - Not yet Defined
5 - Multi-User Mode - boot up in X Windows
6 - Shutdown & Reboot

To change the boot level:

rootatservername ~# vi /etc/inittab

#

  1. inittab This file describes how the INIT process should set up
  2. the system in a certain run-level.
    #
  3. Author: Miquel van Smoorenburg, <miquels@drinkel.nl.mugnet.org>
  4. Modified for RHS Linux by Marc Ewing and Donnie Barnes
    #
  1. Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
  2. 0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
  3. 1 - Single user mode
  4. 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
  5. 3 - Full multiuser mode
  6. 4 - unused
  7. 5 - X11
  8. 6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
    #
    id:3:initdefault: