NAME

rc.conf - which boot services run, and their settings

SYNOPSIS

/etc/rc.conf

DESCRIPTION

/etc/rc.conf turns the boot services of the add-on packages on and off and holds their settings. The installer creates it, the administrator edits it, and no package owns it, so installing, updating or removing a package never changes it. A package can therefore re-create a service's start link in /etc/rc2.d on every update without turning on a service you turned off.

Each line is one of:

service=yes|no

whether service runs at boot.

service_key=value

one setting of service, named in that service's own manual page.

A line that starts with # is a comment, and so is the rest of a line from a blank followed by #. Blank lines are ignored. There are no blanks around the =. A value may be put in double or single quotes, which are removed; nothing else in it is interpreted. When a name is given twice, the last line counts.

The file is read, never run as a script, so a line in it can do nothing but give a value.

DEFAULTS

A service that has no line here gets the default its own boot script names; each service's manual page says which. A value other than yes or no is treated as missing, and the boot log says so.

STOCK SERVICES

Six services of the stock system are installed but do not run unless this file turns them on; each defaults to no:

rwalld

rpc.rwalld, the network wall(1M) server.

rusersd

rpc.rusersd, which tells other hosts who is logged in.

sprayd

rpc.sprayd, the server for spray(1M).

mthreads

mthreads, the news thread daemon of /etc/init.d/news. The rest of that script still runs.

smtpd

smtpd, which takes mail from other hosts over SMTP. Local mail, such as cron's mail to root, is delivered by /bin/mail without it.

lpsched

the print service scheduler lpsched, which starts the network printing daemon lpNet.

rpcbind starts as before, whatever is set here. Each is still the stock script in /etc/init.d, with its stock start and stop links; the base package puts a check of this file in front of it, and the stock stop scripts still run at shutdown. A change takes effect at the next boot, or when the script is run by hand with start.

EXAMPLE

# /etc/rc.conf
syslogd=yes
display=no        # no graphical login, whatever /etc/display says
ifup_dhcpwait=30  # wait longer for a DHCP lease at boot
swap_add=256      # swap on the slice: at most 256 MiB in all
ntp=yes           # set the clock from time servers at boot and hourly
lpsched=yes       # the print service, which is off by default

Without a swap_add line the whole swap slice is added, as far as the kernel takes it; more swap than one area is a file, /SWAPFILE, added at every boot. bootswap(1M) tells both.

FILES

/etc/rc.conf

this file.

/var/adm/rc.log

the boot log, where a bad value is reported.

SEE ALSO

rc.subr(1M), bootswap(1M), ntpsync(1M), display(4), ifup(1M)

NOTES

Of the stock services in /etc/rc2.d, only the six above read this file; the others start as on the stock system.