debian man page for runlevel

RUNLEVEL(8)						Linux System Administrator's Manual					       RUNLEVEL(8)

NAME
       runlevel -- find the previous and current system runlevel.

SYNOPSIS
       runlevel [utmp]

DESCRIPTION
       Runlevel  reads the system utmp file (typically /var/run/utmp) to locate the runlevel record, and then prints the previous and current sys-
       tem runlevel on its standard output, separated by a single space. If there is no previous system runlevel, the letter  N  will  be  printed
       instead.

       If no utmp file exists, or if no runlevel record can be found, runlevel prints the word unknown and exits with an error.

       Runlevel can be used in rc scripts as a substitute for the System-V who -r command.  However, in newer versions of init(8) this information
       is also available in the environment variables RUNLEVEL and PREVLEVEL.

OPTIONS
       utmp   The name of the utmp file to read.

SEE ALSO
       init(8), utmp(5)

AUTHOR
       Miquel van Smoorenburg, miquels@cistron.nl

								   May 27, 1997 						       RUNLEVEL(8)