Chapter 2. Startup
The most striking difference between
Mac OS X and other flavors of Unix is in how Mac OS X handles the
boot process. Gone are /etc/inittab,
/etc/init.d, and
/etc/rc.local from traditional Unix systems. In
their place is a BSD-like startup sequence sandwiched between a
Mach[4] foundation and the Aqua user interface.
This chapter describes the Mac OS X startup sequence, beginning with
the BootX
loader and progressing to full multiuser
mode, at which time the system is ready to accept logins from normal
users. The chapter also covers custom startup items, network
interface configuration, and Mac OS X’s default
cron jobs.
Booting Mac OS X
When the computer is powered up, the firmware
is in complete control. After the firmware initializes the hardware,
it hands off control to the BootX loader, which
bootstraps the kernel. After a trip into Mach, the control bubbles up
into the BSD subsystem, and eventually into the
Aqua user interface.
By default, Mac OS X boots graphically. If you’d like to see console messages as you boot, hold down
-V (the
“V” stands for
“verbose”)
as
you start the computer. If you’d like to always boot
in verbose mode, you can specify a flag in the boot arguments that
are stored in your system’s firmware. First, use the
command nvram boot-args
to make sure there aren’t any flags already set (if there are, and you didn’t set them, you probably should ...
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