INITSPRITE — User Commands

NAME

initsprite − First process executed during bootstrap

SYNOPSIS

initsprite [−cfsx] [−b bootcommand]

OPTIONS

−b bootcommandBootcommand will be passed to the prom if the machine is rebooted. This happens if there is an error checking the root partition. The bootcommands parameter allows the reboot to be done using the same kernel and arguments as the original boot.

−cCauses a fileserver to run rootcmds before running diskcmds. Rootcmds typically contains commands that allows a non-root fileserver to serve as root.

−fCauses a fileserver mount its disks without checking them.

−sCauses initsprite to exec a login instead of running diskcmds and bootcmds.

−xCauses a fileserver to run rootcmds before running diskcmds.

DESCRIPTION

Initsprite is the first user-level program executed when Sprite bootstraps itself on a machine. It is invoked as root, with no arguments. Initsprite opens the console terminal on its standard I/O channels, initializes environment variables like HOST, MACHINE, and PATH, and then invokes csh command scripts to perform system initialization.

Initsprite looks first for a file /boot/cmds/csh; if it exists, then it is invoked to process the command script in /boot/diskcmds. The purpose of diskcmds is to initialize a local disk, if there is one (if there is a local disk the kernel will load the prefix for /bootTmp and / before invoking initsprite).

The main initialization script is in the file /boot/bootcmds. However, if it is desirable to perform special initialization operations for a particular machine, then there should exist a file /hosts/machine/bootcmds where machine is the name of the machine to be treated specially; initsprite checks for this file and executes it in preference to /boot/bootcmds. Typically, the machine-dependent script will source /boot/bootcmds and then perform machine-specific initialization afterwards.

If initsprite successfully executes /boot/bootcmds (or a machine-specific replacement), then it exits. Otherwise it invokes an interactive shell as root on the console device. Normally bootcmds takes care of starting up login processes.

For more information see the man page for boot.

KEYWORDS

bootstrap, initialization, startup, boot