| |
|
Home
|
| Red Hat Linux 7.2: The Official Red Hat Linux Reference Guide |
|---|
| Prev | Chapter 3. Boot Process, Init, and Shutdown | Next |
The following information outlines some of the various files in
/etc/sysconfig, their function, and their
contents. This information is not intended to be complete, as many of
these files have a variety of options that are only used in very specific
or rare circumstances.
The following files are normally found in
/etc/sysconfig:
amd
apmd
authconfig
cipe
clock
desktop
firewall
harddisks
hwconf
i18n
init
ipchains
iptables
irda
keyboard
kudzu
mouse
network
pcmcia
rawdevices
sendmail
soundcard
ups
vncservers
It is possible that your system may be missing a few of them if the
corresponding program that would need that file is not installed.
Next, we will take a look at each one.
The /etc/sysconfig/amd file contains various
parameters used by amd allowing for the
automounting and automatic unmounting of filesystems.
The /etc/sysconfig/apmd file is used by
apmd as a configuration for what
things to start/stop/change on suspend or resume. It is set up to
turn on or off apmd during startup,
depending on whether your hardware supports Advanced
Power Management (APM) or
if you choose not to use it. apm is a
monitoring daemon that works with power management code within the
Linux kernel. It can alert you to a low battery if you are using Red Hat Linux
on a laptop, among other things.
The /etc/sysconfig/authconfig file sets the kind
of authorization to be used on the host. It contains one or more
of the following lines:
USEMD5=<value>,
where
<value> is
one of the following:
USEKERBEROS=<value>,
where
<value> is
one of the following:
USELDAPAUTH=<value>,
where
<value> is
one of the following:
The /etc/sysconfig/clock file controls the
interpretation of values read from the system clock. Earlier
releases of Red Hat Linux used the following values (which are deprecated):
Currently, the correct values are:
UTC=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following boolean values:
ARC=<value>,
where <value> is the
following:
ZONE=<filename> — Indicates the timezone file under
/usr/share/zoneinfo that
/etc/localtime is a copy of, such as:
The /etc/sysconfig/desktop file specifies
the desktop manager to be run, such as:
The /etc/sysconfig/firewall file contains
various firewall settings. By default, this file (if created) is
empty.
The /etc/sysconfig/harddisks file allows you to
tune your hard drive(s). You can also use
/etc/sysconfig/hardiskhd[a-h], to configure
parameters for specific drives.
 | Warning |
|---|
| | Do not make changes to this file lightly. If you change the default values
stored here, you could corrupt all of the data on your hard drive(s).
|
The /etc/sysconfig/harddisks file may contain the following:
USE_DMA=1, where setting this to 1 enables
DMA. However, with some chipsets and hard drive combinations,
DMA can cause data corruption. Check with your hard
drive documentation or manufacturer before enabling
this.
Multiple_IO=16, where a setting of 16 allows
for multiple sectors per I/O interrupt. When enabled, this
feature reduces operating system overhead by
30-50%. Use with caution.
EIDE_32BIT=3 enables (E)IDE 32-bit I/O
support to an interface card.
LOOKAHEAD=1 enables drive read-lookahead.
EXTRA_PARAMS= specifies where extra parameters can be added.
The /etc/sysconfig/hwconf file lists all the
hardware that kudzu detected on your
system, as well as the drivers used, vendor ID and device ID
information. The kudzu program detects and configures
new and/or changed hardware on a system. The
/etc/sysconfig/hwconf file is not meant to be
manually edited. If you do edit it, devices could suddenly show up
as being added or removed.
The /etc/sysconfig/i18n file sets the default
language, such as:
The /etc/sysconfig/init file controls how the
system will appear and function during bootup.
The following values may be used:
BOOTUP=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following:
BOOTUP=color means the standard color
boot display, where the success or failure of devices
and services starting up is shown in different colors.
BOOTUP=verbose means an old style
display, which provides more information than purely a
message of success or failure.
Anything else means a new display, but without
ANSI-formatting.
RES_COL=<value>, where
<value> is the number of
the column of the screen to start status labels. Defaults to 60.
MOVE_TO_COL=<value>, where
<value> moves the
cursor to the value in the RES_COL
line. Defaults to ANSI sequences output by echo
-e.
SETCOLOR_SUCCESS=<value>,
where <value> sets the
color to a color indicating success. Defaults to ANSI sequences output by echo
-e, setting the color to green.
SETCOLOR_FAILURE=<value>, where
<value> sets the
color to a color indicating failure. Defaults to ANSI
sequences output by echo -e, setting the
color to red.
SETCOLOR_WARNING=<value>, where
<value> sets the
color to a color indicating warning. Defaults to ANSI
sequences output by echo -e, setting the
color to yellow.
SETCOLOR_NORMAL=<value>, where
<value> sets the
color to 'normal'. Defaults to ANSI sequences output by
echo -e.
LOGLEVEL=<value>, where
<value> sets the
initial console logging level for the kernel. The default
is 7; 8 means everything (including debugging); 1 means
nothing except kernel
panics. syslogd will override
this once it starts.
PROMPT=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following boolean values:
The /etc/sysconfig/ipchains file contains
information used by the kernel to set up ipchains
rules regarding packet filtering.
This file is modified by running the service ipchains
save command when valid ipchains rules
are in place. You should not manually edit this file. Instead, use
the ipchains command to configure the necessary
packet filtering rules and then save the rules to this file.
Like /etc/sysconfig/ipchains, the
/etc/sysconfig/iptables file stores information
used by the kernel to provide specialized packet filtering
services. However, this file is used by iptables
rather than ipchains.
You should not modify this file by hand unless you are familiar with
methods used to construct iptables rules. These
rules are written to /etc/sysconfig/iptables by
the service iptables save command, which stores
the current iptables rules by running the
/sbin/iptables-save program. Then, when
iptables is restarted, such as is the case when
the system is booted, the /sbin/iptables-restore
program reads the file and reinstitutes the packet filtering rules.
The /etc/sysconfig/irda file controls how
infrared devices on your system are configured at startup.
The following values may be used:
IRDA=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following boolean values:
yes —
irattach will be run, which
periodically checks to see if anything is trying to
connect to the infrared port, such as another notebook
computer trying to make a network connection. For infrared
devices to work on your system, this line must be set to
yes.
no —
irattach will not be run,
preventing infrared device communication.
DEVICE=<value>, where
<value> is the device
(usually a serial port) that handles infrared
connections.
DONGLE=<value>, where
<value> specifies the type of
dongle being used for infrared communication. This setting
exists for people who use serial dongles rather than real
infrared ports. A dongle is a device that is attached to a
traditional serial port to communicate via infrared. This
line is commented out by default because notebooks with real
infrared ports are far more common than computers with add-on
dongles.
DISCOVERY=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following boolean values:
yes — Starts
irattach in discovery mode,
meaning it actively checks for other infrared devices. This
needs to be turned on for the machine to be actively
looking for an infrared connection (meaning the peer
that does not initiate the connection).
no — Does not start
irattach in discovery mode.
The /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file controls
the behavior of the keyboard. The following values may be used:
KEYBOARDTYPE=sun|pc, which is used on
SPARCs only. sun means a Sun keyboard is
attached on /dev/kbd, and
pc means a PS/2 keyboard connected to a
PS/2 port.
KEYTABLE=<file>,
where <file> is the name of a
keytable file. For example:
KEYTABLE="us". The files that can be used
as keytables start in /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386 and branch
into different keyboard layouts from there, all labeled
<file>.kmap.gz.
The first file found beneath
/usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386that matches
the KEYTABLE setting is used.
The /etc/sysconfig/kuzdu allows you to
specify a safe probe of your system's hardware by
kudzu at boot time. A safe probe is one that
disables serial port probing.
The /etc/sysconfig/mouse file is used to
specify information about the available mouse. The following
values may be used:
FULLNAME=<value>,
where
<value>
refers to the full name of the kind of mouse being used.
MOUSETYPE=<value>,
where
<value> is
one of the following:
microsoft — A Microsoft™ mouse.
mouseman — A MouseMan™ mouse.
mousesystems — A Mouse Systems™
mouse.
ps/2 — A PS/2 mouse.
msbm — A Microsoft™ bus mouse.
logibm — A Logitech™ bus mouse.
atibm — An ATI™ bus mouse.
logitech — A Logitech™ mouse.
mmseries — An older MouseMan™
mouse.
mmhittab — An mmhittab mouse.
XEMU3=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following boolean values:
yes — The mouse only has two
buttons, but three mouse buttons should be emulated.
no — The mouse already has three
buttons.
XMOUSETYPE=<value>, where
<value> refers to the
kind of mouse used when X is running. The options here are
the same as the MOUSETYPE setting in this
same file.
DEVICE=<value>,
where <value> is the mouse device.
In addition, /dev/mouse is a symbolic link that
points to the actual mouse device.
The /etc/sysconfig/network file is used to
specify information about the desired network configuration. The
following values may be used:
NETWORKING=<value>,
where
<value> is
one of the following boolean values:
HOSTNAME=<value>,
where
<value>
should be the Fully Qualified Domain
Name (FQDN), such as
hostname.domain.com, but can be whatever
hostname you want.
 | Note |
|---|
| | For compatibility with older software that people might
install (such as trn), the
/etc/HOSTNAME file should contain the
same value as here.
|
GATEWAY=<value>,
where
<value> is
the IP address of the network's gateway.
GATEWAYDEV=<value>,
where
<value> is
the gateway device, such as eth0.
NISDOMAIN=<value>,
where
<value> is
the NIS domain name.
The /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia file is used to
specify PCMCIA configuration information. The following values
may be used:
PCMCIA=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following:
PCIC=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following:
PCIC_OPTS=<value>,
where
<value> is
the socket driver (i82365 or tcic) timing parameters.
CORE_OPTS=<value>,
where <value> is the list of
pcmcia_core options.
CARDMGR_OPTS=<value>,
where
<value> is
the list of options for the PCMCIA cardmgr
(such as -q for quiet mode;
-m to look for loadable kernel modules in
the specified directory, and so on). Read the
cardmgr man page for more information.
The /etc/sysconfig/rawdevices file is used to
configure raw device bindings, such as:
/dev/raw/raw1 /dev/sda1
/dev/raw/raw2 8 5 |
The /etc/sysconfig/sendmail file allows messages
to be sent to one or more recipients, routing the message over
whatever networks are necessary. The file sets the default values
for the Sendmail application to run. Its
default values are to run as a background daemon, and to check its
queue once an hour in case something has backed up.
The following values may be used:
DAEMON=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following boolean values:
yes —
Sendmail should be configured
to listen to port 25 for incoming
mail. yes implies the use of
Sendmail's
-bd options.
no —
Sendmail should not be
configured to listen to port 25 for incoming mail.
QUEUE=1h which is given to
Sendmail as
-q$QUEUE. The -q option is
not given to Sendmail if
/etc/sysconfig/sendmail exists and
QUEUE is empty or undefined.
The /etc/sysconfig/soundcard file is
generated by sndconfig and should not
be modified. The sole use of this file is to determine what card entry
in the menu to pop up by default the next time
sndconfig is run. Soundcard
configuration information is located in the
/etc/modules.conf file.
It may contain the following:
The /etc/sysconfig/ups file is used to
specify information about any Uninterruptible Power
Supplies (UPS) connected to your
system. A UPS can be very valuable for a Red Hat Linux system because it
gives you time to correctly shut down the system in the case of
power interruption. The following values may be used:
SERVER=<value>,
where <value> is one of the
following:
MODEL=<value>,
where
<value>
must be one of the following or set to NONE
if no UPS is connected to the system:
apcsmart — For a APC SmartUPS™
or similar device.
fentonups — For a Fenton UPS™.
optiups — For an OPTI-UPS™ device.
bestups — For a Best Power™ UPS.
genericups — For a generic
brand UPS.
ups-trust425+625 — For a
Trust™ UPS.
DEVICE=<value>,
where
<value>
specifies where the UPS is connected, such as
/dev/ttyS0.
OPTIONS=<value>, where
<value> is a special
command that needs to be passed to the UPS.
The /etc/sysconfig/vncservers file configures how
the Virtual Network Computing
(VNC) server starts up. VNC is a
remote display system which allows you to view a desktop environment
not only on the machine where it is running but across different networks
(from a LAN to the Internet) and using a wide variety of machine
architectures.
It may contain the following:
VNCSERVERS=<value>, where
<value> is set to
something like "1:fred", to indicate that a
VNC server should be started for user fred on display :1. User
fred must have set a VNC password using
vncpasswd before attempting to connect to
the remote VNC server.
Note that when you use a VNC server, your communication with it is unencrypted,
and so it should not be used on an untrusted network. For specific instructions
concerning the use of SSH to secure the VNC communication, please read the
information found at http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/sshvnc.html.
To find out more about SSH, see Chapter 10 or
Official Red Hat Linux Customization Guide.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Disclaimer: For authoritative source or latest update to this
documentation, please refer to http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/ |
|
 |
|
|
|
Quotes: Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
