UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I am doing a services audit on one of our servers at work and I notice that I sometimes have a service with two slightly different prefixes. For example,

S94httpd
K15httpd

Can one of them be safely deleted?

They can (in theory) both safely be deleted, but that will mean that you can't start/stop your HTTP server anymore.

There are (usually) two links to any service script in rc.3 (what's the full path? /etc/rc.d/rc.3? /etc/init.d/rc.3? Just curious), one for starting, one for stopping. Those beginning with 'S' are run when the system enters that runlevel, in numerical and alphabetical order, so S94httpd is started after (exemplary) S93mysql but before S94imapd.

Similarly, scripts starting with K are stopped ("killed") as the system leaves that runlevel.

Further to pludi. Don't delete them.

The "S" scripts are executed in numerical order with the parameter "start" when you enter the runstate and the "K" scripts are executed in numerical order with parameter "stop" when you leave the runstate. The idea is to stop processes in the reverse order you started them.
In most cases the matching start and stop will link to the same script.
See "man rc".

If you ever need to disable a properly written "rc" script first check whether there is a parameter file value to do this. Failing that, renaming the link so it does not start with "S" or "K" is allowed. If you make changes, be prepared to repeat them after applying O/S patches.