Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Name

init

Synopsis

init

System administration command. The init daemon is the parent of all processes on Linux. Traditionally Linux has used a System V Unix style boot process (SysVinit) that calls this daemon at system startup. The SysVinit daemon starts or stops other programmings depending on run level. Newer Linux distributions use a more flexible process called Upstart, but for backward compatibility many still group processes into run levels. For a System V init process use the telinit program to change run levels. For Upstart use initctl to communicate with the init daemon. For more information, see the section Starting and Stopping the System in Starting and Stopping the System.