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    Six Stages of Linux Boot Process (Start-Up Sequence)

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    r.b. senthil babu r.b. senthil babu
    The Linux boot process involves six main stages: 1) The BIOS performs initial checks and loads the master boot record (MBR) 2) The MBR loads the boot loader (GRUB/LILO) which loads the kernel 3) The kernel loads the init program and initial RAM disk 4) Init reads the runlevel from /etc/inittab and loads programs from directories like /etc/rc5.d 5) Runlevel programs starting with S are executed to start services 6) Once completed, Linux is fully booted and ready for use

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    Six Stages of Linux Boot Process (Start-Up Sequence)

    Uploaded by

    r.b. senthil babu r.b. senthil babu
    96 views3 pages
    The Linux boot process involves six main stages: 1) The BIOS performs initial checks and loads the master boot record (MBR) 2) The MBR loads the boot loader (GRUB/LILO) which loads the kernel 3) The kernel loads the init program and initial RAM disk 4) Init reads the runlevel from /etc/inittab and loads programs from directories like /etc/rc5.d 5) Runlevel programs starting with S are executed to start services 6) Once completed, Linux is fully booted and ready for use

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    redhat 6 boot process

    Original Title

    6- Boot Process

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    The Linux boot process involves six main stages: 1) The BIOS performs initial checks and loads the master boot record (MBR) 2) The MBR loads the boot loader (GRUB/LILO) which loads the kernel 3) The kernel loads the init program and initial RAM disk 4) Init reads the runlevel from /etc/inittab and loads programs from directories like /etc/rc5.d 5) Runlevel programs starting with S are executed to start services 6) Once completed, Linux is fully booted and ready for use

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    96 views3 pages

    Six Stages of Linux Boot Process (Start-Up Sequence)

    Uploaded by

    r.b. senthil babu r.b. senthil babu
    The Linux boot process involves six main stages: 1) The BIOS performs initial checks and loads the master boot record (MBR) 2) The MBR loads the boot loader (GRUB/LILO) which loads the kernel 3) The kernel loads the init program and initial RAM disk 4) Init reads the runlevel from /etc/inittab and loads programs from directories like /etc/rc5.d 5) Runlevel programs starting with S are executed to start services 6) Once completed, Linux is fully booted and ready for use

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Linux Boot Process

    Six stages of Linux boot process (start-up sequence)

    BIOS - Basic Input Output System - executes MBR

    MBR - Master Boot Record - executes GRUB/LILO

    GRUB/LILO - Grand Unified Boot loader - executes Kernel


    Linux Loader

    Kernel - Kernel - executes /sbin/init

    Init - Init - executes run level programs

    Runlevel - 6runlevel programs - executed from /etc/rc.d/rc*.d/

    1. BIOS
     BIOS stand for Basic Input Output System.
     The first program
     Runs from ROM
     Performs some system integrity checks
    POST (power on self-test)
     Once the boot loader program is detected and loaded into the memory.

    2. MBR
     MBR stands for Master Boot Record / Master Block Record.
     It is locate in the 1st sector of the bootable disk. Typically /dev/hda or /dev/sda
     MBR is less than 512byte in size.
     This has three components 1) primary boot loader in 1 st 446 bytes, 2) partition table info in next
    64 bytes, 3) MBR validation check in last 2 byte.
     It contains information about GRUB (or LILO in old systems).
     MBR load and executes the GRUB boot loader

    3. GRUB
     GRUB stands for Grand Unified Bootloader.
     GRUB will work well with Linux, DOS, Windows, BSD.
     GRUB configuration file is /boot/grub/grub.conf and /etc/grub.conf.
     GRUB contains displays a boot menu splash screen, waits for few seconds, if you don’t enter
    anything, it loads the default kernel image and initrd image as specified in the grub configuration
    file.

    4. Kernel
    · Mounts the root file system as specified in the “root=” in grub.conf
    · Kernel executes the /sbin/init program
    · Since init was the 1st program to be executed by Linux Kernel, it has the process id (PID) of 1. Do a
    ‘ps -ef | grep init’ and check the pid.
    · initrd stands for Initial RAM Disk.
    · initrd is used by kernel as temporary root file system until kernel is booted and the real root file system
    is mounted. It also contains necessary drivers compiled inside, which helps it to access the hard drive
    partitions, and other hardware.

    1
    5. Init
    · Looks at the /etc/inittab file to decide the Linux run level.
    · Following are the available run levels
    o 0 – halt
    o 1 – Single user mode
    o 2 – Multiuser, without NFS
    o 3 – Full multiuser mode
    o 4 – unused
    o 5 – X11
    o 6 – reboot
    · Init identifies the default initlevel from /etc/inittab and uses that to load all appropriate program.
    · Execute ‘grep initdefault /etc/inittab’ on your system to identify the default run level
    · If you want to get into trouble, you can set the default run level to 0 or 6. Since you know what 0 and 6
    means, probably you might not do that.
    · Typically you would set the default run level to either 3 or 5.

    6. Runlevel programs
    · When the Linux system is booting up, you might see various services getting started. For example, it
    might say “starting sendmail …. OK”. Those are the runlevel programs, executed from the run level
    directory as defined by your run level.
    · Depending on your default init level setting, the system will execute the programs from one of the
    following directories.
    o Run level 0 – /etc/rc.d/rc0.d/
    o Run level 1 – /etc/rc.d/rc1.d/
    o Run level 2 – /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/
    o Run level 3 – /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/
    o Run level 4 – /etc/rc.d/rc4.d/
    o Run level 5 – /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/
    o Run level 6 – /etc/rc.d/rc6.d/
    · Please note that there are also symbolic links available for these directory under /etc directly. So,
    /etc/rc0.d is linked to /etc/rc.d/rc0.d.
    · Under the /etc/rc.d/rc*.d/ directories, you would see programs that start with S and K.
    · Programs starts with S are used during startup. S for startup.
    · Programs starts with K are used during shutdown. K for kill.
    · There are numbers right next to S and K in the program names. Those are the sequence number in
    which the programs should be started or killed.
    · For example, S12syslog is to start the syslog deamon, which has the sequence number of 12.
    S80sendmail is to start the sendmail daemon, which has the sequence number of 80. So, syslog
    program will be started before sendmail.
    There you have it. That is what happens during the Linux boot process.

    [root@server1 ~]# cat /etc/grub.conf


    # grub.conf generated by anaconda
    #
    # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
    # NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
    # all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
    # root (hd0,0)
    # kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda2
    # initrd /initrd-[generic-]version.img
    #boot=/dev/sda
    default=0
    2
    timeout=5
    splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
    hiddenmenu
    title Red Hat Enterprise Linux (2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64)
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64 ro root=UUID=8c39a0f5-c7a8-47a4-b455-009e2e228099
    rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 rd_NO_MD quiet SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16
    rhgb crashkernel=auto KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rd_NO_DM
    initrd /initramfs-2.6.32-220.el6.x86_64.img

    [root@server1 ~]# 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:5:initdefault:

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