Checkconfig - configure services start and stop automatically in the /etc/rd.d/init.d

The Chkconfig command tool allows to configure services start and stop automatically in the /etc/rd.d/init.d scripts through command line. Let’s see some examples.

List All services

# chkconfig --list

acpid           0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off
atd             0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off
htcacheclean    0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off
httpd           0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off


Check specific services

# chkconfig --list | grep httpd
httpd           0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

Start Particular Service 

 The command shows how to start HTTP services only on run level 3 and 5 with 

 ‘–level‘ parameter. 

# chkconfig --level 35 httpd on  -- starts httpd services on run level 3 and 5

# chkconfig --list | grep httpd --verifies the status of httpd services running on run level
httpd           0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:off   5:on    6:off

# chkconfig --list | grep 5:on

# chkconfig --list | grep 5:off

How to stop a particular service on Run Level 

This command will turned Off a service called postfix 

for a just single run level. Similarly, we can turn Off a particular 

service in multiple run levels in one go as shown under.

# chkconfig --level 3 postfix off

# chkconfig --level 2345 postfix off

Additional Information:

From the file /etc/inittab:

# Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:

#   0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)

#   1 - Single user mode

#   2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)

#   3 - Full multiuser mode

#   4 - unused

#   5 - X11

#   6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)



If your system boots with a gui, then you use runlevel 5, if it boots to a text console, you're using runlevel 3.