Well finally, I have started to use Solaris. Whenever I get different version of UNIX; I need to find out runlevel related information, as you may need to change runlevel for following causes:

1. Halt/reboot system when shutdown command don’t work
2. Troubleshooting or repairing system

The first thing I noticed was /etc/inittab file is different from the Linux version. However, runlevel are quite identical

Default Solaris Run Level

• S : Single user state (useful for recovery)
• 0 : Access Sun Firmware ( ok> prompt)
• 1 : System administrator mode
• 2 : Multi-user w/o NFS
• 3 : Multi-user with NFS
• 4 : Unused
• 5 : Completely shutdown the host (like performing a power-off @ OBP) [ thanks to Marco ]
• 6 : Reboot but depend upon initdefault entry in /etc/inittab

Solaris Find out runlevel
To find out current runlevel use who command:

$ who -r

Output:

  .       run-level 3  Mar  3 14:04     3      0  S

Solaris changing runlevels after bootup
You need to use init command, for example change runlevel to 2.

# /sbin/init 2

Solaris changing the default runlevel
An entry with initdefault (in /etc/inittab file) is scanned only when init is initially invoked. init uses this entry to determine which run level to enter initially.

Open /etc/inittab file:

# vi /etc/inittab

Find out this entry:

is:3:initdefault:

Change is:3 to number you want, don’t use S, 0, 6 ;). Save file.

See also

• Read man page of inittab and init for more information.
• There is also a nice program called runlevel for Solaris.

(Check out all of our posts on Solaris)