Installation guide

respawn
If the process does not exist or dies, init starts it. If the
process currently exists, init does nothing and continues
scanning the inittab file.
wait
When init enters a run level that matches the run level of
the entry, it starts the process and waits for its termination.
As long as init continues in this run level, it does not act
on subsequent reads of the entry in the inittab file.
bootwait
When init first executes and reads the inittab file, it
processes this line entry. The init program starts the
process, waits for its termination and, when it dies, does not
restart the process.
initdefault
A line with this action is processed when init is first
invoked. The init program uses this line to determine
which run level to enter. To do this, it takes the highest run
level specified in the run-level field and uses that as its
initial state. If the run-level field is empty, this is
interpreted as 0s23, so init enters run level 3. If init does
not find an initdefault line in the inittab file, it
requests an initial run level from the operator.
Other action keywords are available and recognized by the init
program. See the inittab
(4) reference page for more information.
Command
This 1024-character field holds the sh command to be executed. The
entry in the command field is prefixed with exec. Any legal sh syntax
can appear in the command field.
You can insert comments in the inittab file by specifying a # (number
sign) at the beginning of a line. You can also place a \ (line continuation
character) at the end of a line.
If you intend to change or add entries to the /etc/inittab file, make
certain that you are familiar with the function and contents of the
associated files and run command scripts.
The following sections provide information that will help you to use the
/etc/inittab file.
4.1.1.1 Specifying the Initialization Default Run Level
At boot time, the init program looks in the inittab file for the
initdefault keyword to find the definition of the run level to enter. If
there is no entry for initdefault, the system prompts you for a run level.
In the previous inittab file example, the following line indicates that the
4–6 Customizing the System Environment