network addresses for a networking interface).
For example, in the past a system administrator could quickly change the
system to maintenance or single-user mode by using the telinit command
with its S option, like this:
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matthew@seymour:~$ sudo telinit S
Today, the same thing would be done using this systemd command:
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matthew@seymour:~$ sudo systemctl rescue
The telinit command uses the init command to change runlevels and
shut down currently running services. However, under systemd, telinit
is deprecated.
After booting to single-user mode, you used to then return to multiuser mode,
like this:
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matthew@seymour:~$ sudo telinit 2
Today, the same thing would be done using this systemd command:
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matthew@seymour:~$ systemctl default
TIP
Linux is full of shortcuts. For example, if you don’t want to use the
systemctl default command, you can just click Ctrl+D. If you exit
the single-user shell by typing exit at the prompt, you go back to the
default runlevel without having to use telinit or systemctl.
Troubleshooting Runlevel Problems
Reordering or changing system services during a particular runlevel is rarely
necessary when using Ubuntu unless some disaster occurs. But system
administrators should have a basic understanding of how Linux boots and
how services are controlled in order to perform troubleshooting or diagnose
problems. By using additional utilities such as the dmesg | less
command to read kernel output after booting or by examining system logging
with cat /var/log/messages | less, it is possible to gain a bit
more detail about what is going on when faced with troublesome drivers or