2 weeks ago
FreeBSD's rc System
FreeBSD's rc system is the init mechanism that has aged best in the Unix world. It uses ordered shell scripts, a clean configuration hierarchy, and a dependency resolver that handles the ordering problem without numbered runlevels. This post walks through how /sbin/init reaches /etc/rc, how the configuration files in /etc/defaults/rc.conf and /etc/rc.conf and /etc/rc.conf.local compose, and where your own scripts belong on a properly maintained FreeBSD system.