Readme for "SysV style init"  08-12-1992

	Init, shutdown, reboot, halt, wall, last mesg.

All these programs are included in this package. They were initially
developed for the Minix operating system, but since I am now using
Linux, they are now primarily ment for Linux. The first Linux port of
init.c was done by poe@daimi.aau.dk, and the manual page for init was
written by Michael Haardt, who also helped me to debug init.

All programs have been completely written from scratch. Therefore
they are copyrighted by me. However, these versions are free to
redistribute and to do with as you like. I will not take responsibility
whatsoever on these programs.

Installation should be straight forward: "make install" will
compile everyhing and then put things into place. If you already have
programs in non-standard places, the install script will see this
and place the new programs there also. The install script will
also convert an old-style inittab file to a new one.

Alternatively, you can type "make" and install the programs by hand.
Here is a list of preferred directories to put 'em:

wall.1, last.1, mesg.1	   /usr/man/man1
init.8,halt.8, shutdown.8  /usr/man/man8

init			   /etc/init
inittab		   	   /etc/inittab
telinit		   	   a hard link (with ln(1) ) to init, either
			   in /bin or in /etc.
halt			   /etc/halt
reboot			   a link to /etc/halt in the same directory
shutdown		   either /etc/shutdown or /bin/shutdown.
			   (the install script soflinks them)
brc			   /etc/brc
wall			   /bin/wall
mesg			   /usr/bin/mesg
last			   /bin/last

If you already _have_ a "wall" in /bin (the SLS release has, for example)
do _not_ install this wall. Chances are that the wall you are already
using is linked to /bin/write. Either first _remove_ /bin/wall before
installing the new one, or don't install the new one at all.

Telinit and shutdown can be either in /bin or /etc. Historically, they
were placed in /etc but since the new policy seems to be that _all_
executables belong in a bin directory, they might as well go into /bin.
I think that init, halt reboot and brc belong in /etc because they are
typically only executed once and not ment for direct execution by the user.
Another suitable place for these programs might be in a directory like
/sbin, though the source for shutdown should be changed then.

Make _sure_ that the inittab you are installing is correct, or else your
system will not be able to boot correctly the next times it's rebooted.
Also make sure that there are no duplicate commands in /etc/inittab and
/etc/rc. Things like cron and update belong in inittab, things like
fsck and mount in rc. Please have a look at the sample "inittab" and
"rc" files, they will give you an idea how to set things up. You don't
_have_ to use inittab for things like 'update' and 'cron', and still
run them from rc, but it would be nice wouldn't it?.

Now reboot and pray..

If it works, I would strongly recommend that you use in your inittab the
line also present in the example inittab:

pf::powerwait:/etc/shutdown -rf now > /dev/console < /dev/console 2>&1
(the install script does this by default)

If you now press CTRL-ALT-DEL, the system will shut down and reboot cleanly!

Miquel van Smoorenburg, miquels@htsa.aha.nl, miquels@drinkel.nl.mugnet.org