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Linux Boot Process

The 6 high level stages of a typical Linux boot process are: 1. BIOS performs checks and loads the boot loader. 2. The boot loader (MBR) is loaded and executes the next stage boot loader (GRUB). 3. GRUB displays a splash screen and loads the Linux kernel and initrd image. 4. The kernel mounts the root file system and executes the init program. 5. Init looks at /etc/inittab to determine the run level and loads appropriate programs. 6. Depending on the run level, programs in directories like /etc/rc3.d/ are executed.

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73 views4 pages

Linux Boot Process

The 6 high level stages of a typical Linux boot process are: 1. BIOS performs checks and loads the boot loader. 2. The boot loader (MBR) is loaded and executes the next stage boot loader (GRUB). 3. GRUB displays a splash screen and loads the Linux kernel and initrd image. 4. The kernel mounts the root file system and executes the init program. 5. Init looks at /etc/inittab to determine the run level and loads appropriate programs. 6. Depending on the run level, programs in directories like /etc/rc3.d/ are executed.

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Saeed Khan
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The following are the 6 high level stages of a

typical Linux boot process.

1. BIOS
 BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System  Performs system integrity
checks  Searches, loads, and executes the boot loader program 
 It looks for boot loader in floppy, cd-rom, or hard drive
 Once the boot loader program is detected and loaded into the memory,
BIOS gives the control to it.
 So, in simple terms BIOS loads and executes the MBR boot loader.

2. MBR
 MBR stands for Master Boot Record.
 It is located in the 1st sector of the bootable disk. Typically
/dev/hda, or /dev/sda
 MBR is less than 512 bytes in size. This has three components 1)
primary boot loader info in 1st 446 bytes 2) partition table info in
next 64 bytes 3) mbr validation check in last 2 bytes.
 It contains information about GRUB (or LILO in old
systems).
 So, in simple terms MBR loads and executes the GRUB boot
loader.

3. GRUB
 GRUB stands for Grand Unified Bootloader.
 If you have multiple kernel images installed on your system, you can
choose which one to be executed.
 GRUB displays a splash screen, waits for few seconds, if you don’t
enter anything, it loads the default kernel image as specified in the
grub configuration file.
 GRUB has the knowledge of the filesystem (the older Linux loader
LILO didn’t understand filesystem).
 Grub configuration file is /boot/grub/grub.conf (/etc/grub.conf is a
link to this). The following is sample grub.conf of CentOS
 As you notice from the above info, it contains kernel and initrd
image.
 So, in simple terms GRUB just loads and executes Kernel and initrd
images.

4. Kernel
 Mounts the root file system as specified in the “root=” in grub.conf
 Kernel executes the /sbin/init program
 Since init was the 1st program to be executed by Linux Kernel, it has
the process id (PID) of 1. Do a ‘ps -ef | grep init’ and check the pid.
 initrd stands for Initial RAM Disk.
 initrd is used by kernel as temporary root file system until kernel is
booted and the real root file system is mounted. It also contains
necessary drivers compiled inside, which helps it to access the hard
drive partitions, and other hardware.

5. Init
 Looks at the /etc/inittab file to decide the Linux run level.
 Following are the available run levels
 0 – halt
 1 – Single user mode
 2 – Multiuser, without NFS
 3 – Full multiuser mode
 4 – unused
 5 – X11
 6 – reboot
 Init identifies the default initlevel from /etc/inittab and uses that to
load all appropriate program.
 Execute ‘grep initdefault /etc/inittab’ on your system to identify the
default run level
 If you want to get into trouble, you can set the default run level to 0
or 6. Since you know what 0 and 6 means, probably you might not
do that.
 Typically you would set the default run level to either 3 or 5.

6. Runlevel programs
Depending on which Linux distribution you have installed, you may
be able to see different services getting started. For example, you
might catch starting sendmail …. OK.
These are known as runlevel programs, and are executed from
different directories depending on your run level. Each of the 6
runlevels described above has its own directory:

 Run level 0 – /etc/rc0.d/


 Run level 1 – /etc/rc1.d/
 Run level 2  – /etc/rc2.d/
 Run level 3  – /etc/rc3.d/
 Run level 4 – /etc/rc4.d/
 Run level 5 – /etc/rc5.d/
 Run level 6 – /etc/rc6.d/
Note:
If you look in the different run level directories, you'll find
programs that start with either an "S" or "K" for startup and
kill, respectively. Startup programs are executed during
system startup, and kill programs during shutdown.

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