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LPI exam 102 prep, Topic 106: Boot, initialization, shutdown, and runlevels

Junior Level Administration (LPIC-1) topic 106

Ian Shields (ishields@us.ibm.com), Senior Programmer, EMC
Ian Shields
Ian Shields works on a multitude of Linux projects for the developerWorks Linux zone. He is a Senior Programmer at IBM at the Research Triangle Park, NC. He joined IBM in Canberra, Australia, as a Systems Engineer in 1973, and has since worked on communications systems and pervasive computing in Montreal, Canada, and RTP, NC. He has several patents. His undergraduate degree is in pure mathematics and philosophy from the Australian National University. He has an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from North Carolina State University. You can contact Ian at ishields@us.ibm.com.
(An IBM developerWorks Contributing Author)

Summary:  In this tutorial, Ian Shields continues preparing you to take the Linux Professional Institute® Junior Level Administration (LPIC-1) Exam 102. In this second in a series of nine tutorials, Ian introduces you to startup and shutdown on Linux®. By the end of this tutorial, you will know guide a system through booting, set kernel parameters, and shut down or reboot a system.

View more content in this series

Date:  04 Apr 2006
Level:  Intermediate
PDF:  A4 and Letter (91 KB | 23 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity:  15826 views
Comments:  

Before you start

Learn what these tutorials can teach you and how you can get the most from them.

About this series

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) certifies Linux system administrators at two levels: junior level (also called "certification level 1") and intermediate level (also called "certification level 2"). To attain certification level 1, you must pass exams 101 and 102; to attain certification level 2, you must pass exams 201 and 202.

developerWorks offers tutorials to help you prepare for each of the four exams. Each exam covers several topics, and each topic has a corresponding self-study tutorial on developerWorks. For LPI exam 102, the nine topics and corresponding developerWorks tutorials are:

Table 1. LPI exam 102: Tutorials and topics
LPI exam 102 topicdeveloperWorks tutorialTutorial summary
Topic 105 LPI exam 102 prep:
Kernel 		Learn how to install and maintain Linux kernels and kernel modules.
Topic 106 LPI exam 102 prep:
Boot, initialization, shutdown, and runlevels		(This tutorial). Learn how to boot a system, set kernel parameters, and shut down or reboot a system. See detailed objectives below.
Topic 107 LPI exam 102 prep:
Printing		Coming soon.
Topic 108 LPI exam 102 prep:
Documentation		Coming soon.
Topic 109 LPI exam 102 prep:
Shells, scripting, programming and compiling		Coming soon.
Topic 111 LPI exam 102 prep:
Administrative tasks		Coming soon.
Topic 112 LPI exam 102 prep:
Networking fundamentals		Coming soon.
Topic 113 LPI exam 102 prep:
Networking services		Coming soon.
Topic 114 LPI exam 102 prep:
Security		Coming soon.

To pass exams 101 and 102 (and attain certification level 1), you should be able to:

  • Work at the Linux command line
  • Perform easy maintenance tasks: help out users, add users to a larger system, back up and restore, and shut down and reboot
  • Install and configure a workstation (including X) and connect it to a LAN, or connect a stand-alone PC via modem to the Internet

To continue preparing for certification level 1, see the developerWorks tutorials for LPI exams 101 and 102, as well as the entire set of developerWorks LPI tutorials.

The Linux Professional Institute does not endorse any third-party exam preparation material or techniques in particular. For details, please contact info@lpi.org.

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About this tutorial

Welcome to "Boot, initialization, shutdown, and runlevels," the second of nine tutorials designed to prepare you for LPI exam 102. In this tutorial, you learn how to boot a system, set kernel parameters, and shut down or reboot a system.

This tutorial is organized according to the LPI objectives for this topic. Very roughly, expect more questions on the exam for objectives with higher weight.

Table 2. Boot, initialization, shutdown, and runlevels: Exam objectives covered in this tutorial
LPI exam objectiveObjective weightObjective summary
1.106.1
Boot the system 		Weight 3Guide the system through the booting process, including giving commands to the boot loader and setting kernel options at boot time. Learn how to check boot events in log files.
1.106.2
Change runlevels, and shut down or reboot system 		Weight 3Manage the runlevel of the system, and set the default runlevel, plus change to single-user mode, shut down and reboot the system. Learn how to alert users before switching runlevel, and how to properly terminate processes.

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Prerequisites

To get the most from this tutorial, you should have a basic knowledge of Linux and a working Linux system on which to practice the commands covered in this tutorial.

This tutorial builds on content covered in previous tutorials in this LPI series, so you may want to first review the tutorials for exam 101. In particular, you should be very familiar with the material from the "LPI exam 101 prep (topic 102): Linux installation and package management" tutorial.

Different versions of a program may format output differently, so your results may not look exactly like the listings and figures in this tutorial.

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