[PLUG] Slackware Specific: Learning Why rc.local Does Not Run

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Mon Dec 13 14:48:32 UTC 2004


   This is a new one on me. When the UPS battery failed and I rebooted the
system I learned that the processes, applications and drivers in rc.local do
not load. I cannot be sure that it is called at the end of the boot process,
but it has been (and is) on every other system, so I assume that it is.

   The driver for my tape drive doesn't load automatically during boot so I
put that line in rc.local, but the driver is still not loaded. gpm, httpd,
smb and a few more applications that should be loaded because /etc/rc.d/rc.*
are present and executable.

   The SCSI tape driver, sym53c8xx.o.gz, is uncommented in
/etc/rc.d/rc.modules and apparently shows up in dmesg:

sym53c895-0: rev 0x1 on pci bus 0 device 5 function 0 irq 11
sym53c895-0: Tekram format NVRAM, ID 7, Fast-40, Parity Checking
scsi1 : sym53c8xx-1.7.3c-20010512
   Vendor: TANDBERG  Model: SLR60             Rev: 0420
   Type:   Sequential-Access                  ANSI SCSI revision: 02
   Vendor: PLEXTOR   Model: CD-R   PX-W1210S  Rev: 1.01
   Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
st: Version 20040102, bufsize 32768, max init. bufs 4, s/g segs 16
Attached scsi tape st0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 4, lun 0
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi1, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
sym53c895-0-<6,*>: FAST-20 SCSI 20.0 MB/s (50.0 ns, offset 16)
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 32x/32x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
sym53c895-0-<4,*>: FAST-20 WIDE SCSI 40.0 MB/s (50.0 ns, offset 15)

But, until I manually load the driver no backups are done.

   In /etc/rc.d/rc.M (the multiuser init script) samba and gpm are called:

# Start Samba (a file/print server for Win95/NT machines).
# Samba can be started in /etc/inetd.conf instead.
if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.samba ]; then
   . /etc/rc.d/rc.samba start
fi

# Start the GPM mouse server:
if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.gpm ]; then
   . /etc/rc.d/rc.gpm start
fi

But, they don't fire up. Manual intervention is needed. Same with the
postgresql backend.

   However, many other services _do_ initialize and load properly.

   Is there a way (/var/log/messages shows me nothing meaningful) to
determinne the source of this problem and fix it? My replacement UPS battery
is scheduled to arrive today so I'd like to have the system boot properly
when I shut it down to swap UPS boxes.

Thanks,

Rich

-- 
Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>   Voice: 503-667-4517   Fax: 503-667-8863



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