chkconfig

Introduction

chkconfig is an admnistrative command line interface utility that may be used to get, check, or set the configuration state for one or more flags used by system initialization or start-up scripts.

chkconfig is inspired by and designed to work as a superset of the functionality of the same name that originally appeared on Silicon Graphics' (also known as, SGI) now-defunct IRIX operating system.

In the days of systemd, the need for a utility like chkconfig might seem unclear. However, there remain embedded system use cases, particularly when used with BusyBox init, where things are sufficiently simple that chkconfig fills an administrative void on such a system, even 30+ years after its predecessor first appeared on IRIX.

Please see the chkconfig manual reference page for more information.

Getting Started with chkconfig

Building chkconfig

If you are not using a prebuilt distribution of chkconfig, building chkconfig should be a straightforward, two- or three-step process. If you are building from the main branch, start with:

% ./bootstrap

If you are building from the main branch, a release branch, or a distribution package, continue (main branch) or start with:

% ./configure
% make

The first bootstrap step creates the configure script and Makefile.in files from configure.ac and Makefile.am respectively and only needs to be done once unless those input files have changed.

The second configure step generates Makefile files from Makefile.in files and only needs to be done once unless those input files have changed.

Although not strictly necessary, the additional step of sanity checking the build results is recommended:

% make check

Dependencies

In addition to depending on the C Standard Library, chkconfig depends on:

• nlassert
• nlunit-test

However, nlunit-test is only required when building and running the chkconfig unit test suite.

If you want to modify or otherwise maintain the chkconfig build system, see "Maintaining chkcofig" below for more information.

Installing chkconfig

To install chkconfig for your use simply invoke:

% make install

to install chkconfig in the location indicated by the --prefix configure option (default "/usr/local"). If you intended an arbitrarily relocatable chkconfig installation and passed --prefix=/ to configure, then you might use DESTDIR to, for example install chkconfig in your user directory:

% make DESTIDIR="${HOME}" install

Note, however, that there are several influential configure options in terms of where chkconfig (and the associated library) will, by default, look for flags and state:

• --prefix
• --localstatedir
• --sysconfdir
• --with-chkconfig-defaultdir
• --with-chkconfig-statedir

The --prefix option, by default, influences both --localstatedir and --sysconfdir. In turn, --localstatedir, by default, influences --with-chkconfig-statedir and --sysconfdir, by default, influences --with-chkconfig-defaultdir.

So, if you wanted to ensure that the default and state directories ended up in /etc/config and /var/config, respectively, then you would want to invoke configure as follows:

• configure --prefix=/ --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var

However, if you prefer other values for those options, you could also invoke configure as follows for similar results:

• configure --with-chkconfig-defaultdir=/etc/config --with-chkconfig-statedir=/var/config

Maintaining chkconfig

If you want to maintain, enhance, extend, or otherwise modify chkconfig, it is likely you will need to change its build system, based on GNU autotools, in some circumstances.

After any change to the chkconfig build system, including any Makefile.am files or the configure.ac file, you must run the bootstrap or bootstrap-configure (which runs both bootstrap and configure in one shot) script to update the build system.

Dependencies

Due to its leverage of GNU autotools, if you want to modify or otherwise maintain the chkconfig build system, the following additional packages are required and are invoked by bootstrap:

• autoconf
• automake
• libtool

Linux

On Debian-based Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, these dependencies can be satisfied with the following:

% sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libtool

Mac OS X

On Mac OS X, these dependencies can be installed and satisfied using Brew:

% brew install autoconf automake libtool

Interact

There are numerous avenues for chkconfig support:

• Bugs and feature requests — submit to the Issue Tracker

Versioning

chkconfig follows the Semantic Versioning guidelines for release cycle transparency and to maintain backwards compatibility.

License

chkconfig is released under the Apache License, Version 2.0 license. See the LICENSE file for more information.