Startup scripts

[Matthew Couper]

I'm trying to add a custom script into to the system boot. If I'm not mistaken, I should only have to link the script to the proper rc directory like so

ln -s /path/to/script /sbin/rc3.d/S999script.name

This is a script that starts and runs fine from the command line, but addinig to startup will be very useful. Is this correct or am I way off and risk hanging the boot like this? As you can see I want it to be the last thing that starts at boot time.

[Michael Tully]

For consistancy purposes the script really should be in /sbin/init.d with the link in /sbin/rc?.d/S999scriptname.
Did you use the template startup script as a guide in /sbin/init.d ? If not there could be something wrong. You may wish to post a copy here.

[Sundar_7]

The /sbin/rc script executes the script with "start" as the argument if the link starts with S and executes the script with "stop" as the argument if the link starts with "K".

As suggested, copy /sbin/init.d/template and include the script commands in the "start" section of the template.

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

HP-UX does things a little differently that other UNIX flavors. You should really put your script in /sbin/init.d and softlink your Snnn startup and Knnn kill scripts to this file in /sbin/init.d. There is a template in /sbin/init.d that you should copy and use as a model. One difference in HP-UX is that in addition to the traditional "stop" and "start" arguments, "stop_msg" and "start_msg" arguments are also supplied by rc. That's where those [BUSY] [WAIT] [OK] startup/shutdown messages come from.

By convention, the startup and kill values should add to 1000. This tends to order the startup/shutdown sequences nicely. For example if you link:
ln -s /sbin/init.d/myscript /sbin/rc3.d/S999myscript

You should link a kill script in run-level -1
ln -s /sbin/init.d/myscript /sbin/rc2.d/K001myscript

Make sure that you set and export and needed environment variables including PATH or you may find that the command will work perfectly when executed manually (when you have a nice PATH, etc.) but fail when rc'ed.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

HP-UX does things a little differently that other UNIX flavors. You should really put your script in /sbin/init.d and softlink your Snnn startup and Knnn kill scripts to this file in /sbin/init.d. There is a template in /sbin/init.d that you should copy and use as a model. One difference in HP-UX is that in addition to the traditional "stop" and "start" arguments, "stop_msg" and "start_msg" arguments are also supplied by rc. That's where those [BUSY] [WAIT] [OK] startup/shutdown messages come from.

By convention, the startup and kill values should add to 1000. This tends to order the startup/shutdown sequences nicely. For example if you link:
ln -s /sbin/init.d/myscript /sbin/rc3.d/S999myscript

You should link a kill script in run-level -1
ln -s /sbin/init.d/myscript /sbin/rc2.d/K001myscript

Make sure that you set and export any needed environment variables including PATH or you may find that the command will work perfectly when executed manually (when you have a nice PATH, etc.) but fail when rc'ed.

[Sundar_7]

One more thing, /sbin/rc determines whether the script execution is successful or not based on the exit value.

an exit value of 3 from your script would mean the system will keep rebooting :-).

an exit value of 1 means failure, 2 means the script execution is skipped based on setting in some configuration file the script uses. (the startup scripts source /etc/rc.config.d/* files).

[Con O'Kelly]

Hi

I've attached a document on startup that provides excellent info on how startup/shutdown scripts work under HP-UX.

Cheers
Con

[Robert True]

This is off-thread, but Con, can you supply the link to the complete Doc that you attached Chap3 from? Got it somewhere, on some system, but I've lost it.

Thanks,
Rt.

[Matthew Couper]

Thanks everyone, very helpful indead (even helped me on another issue I had!)

You've given me more then enough to get in the right direction on this, thanks so much!

If I have any other questions I'll post them here

(and Clay, no points for double posting! =)

[Matthew Couper]

I'm stumped on the template file, what is the CONTROL_VARIABLE for? Should that be changed or is the default fine for that?

[Matthew Couper]

I think I found my answer, the CONTROL_VARIABLE is used to determine if this should run or not.
So say I make a new script from the template and call it "start_script" and I use RUN_IT for the control variable, I need another file in /etc/rc.config.d called "start_script" and in there is a line that says RUN_IT=1 which say to run the script, if the 1 was a 0 it would skip running the script.

Is that run-on sentence the correct pattern (other then the obvious grammar errors)?

[Sundar_7]

Yes you are right on ! :-)

# vi /etc/rc.config.d/myapp
RUN_IT=1
#

# vi /sbin/init.d/myapp
- Replace CONTROL_VARIABLE with RUN_IT

create sym links in /sbin/rc3.d to start and in /sbin/rc2.d (or below) to shutdown the application.