.TH telinit 8 2009-07-09 "Upstart"
.\"
.SH NAME
telinit \- change system runlevel
.\"
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B telinit
.RI [ OPTION ]...
.I RUNLEVEL
.\"
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B telinit
may be used to change the system runlevel.

The
.I RUNLEVEL
argument should be one of the multi-user runlevels
.BR 2-5 ,
.B 0
to halt the system,
.B 6
to reboot the system or
.B 1
to bring the system down into single-user mode.

Normally you would use the
.BR shutdown (8)
tool to halt or reboot the system, or to bring it down to single-user mode.

.I RUNLEVEL
may also be
.BR S " or " s
which will place the system directly into single-user mode without actually
stopping processes first, you probably won't want that.

The runlevel is changed by emitting the
.BR runlevel (7)
event, which includes the new runlevel in the
.B RUNLEVEL
environment variable as well as the previous runlevel (obtained from the
environment or from
.IR /var/run/utmp )
in the
.B PREVLEVEL variable.

.B telinit
will write the new runlevel to
.I /var/run/utmp
and append a new entry to
.I /var/log/wtmp.
\"
.SS Other commands
.B telinit
may be also used to send basic commands to the
.BR init (8)
daemon for compatibility with System V.  These are:
.\"
.TP
.BR Q " or " q
to request that
.BR init (8)
reload its configuration.  This is rarely necessary since Upstart watches
its configuration with
.BR inotify (7)
and is deprecated by the
.BR initctl (8)
.B reload-configuration
command.
.\"
.TP
.BR U " or " u
to request that the
.BR init (8)
daemon re-execute itself.  This is necessary when upgrading the Upstart
.BR init (8)
daemon itself or any of its dependent system libraries
to ensure disks can be unmounted cleanly on shutdown.

Note that if the init daemon is
.I not
Upstart, this option will have no effect on the running
.BR init (8)
daemon.
.\"
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BI "-e " KEY=VALUE
This specifies an additional environment variable to be included in the event
along with
.B RUNLEVEL
and
.BR PREVLEVEL .
.\"
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.B RUNLEVEL
.B telinit
will read the current runlevel from this environment variable if set in
preference to reading from
.I /var/run/utmp
.\"
.SH FILES
.TP
.I /var/run/utmp
Where the current runlevel will be read from; this file will also be updated
with the new runlevel.
.\"
.TP
.I /var/log/wtmp
A new runlevel record will be appended to this file for the new runlevel.
.\"
.SH NOTES
The Upstart
.BR init (8)
daemon does not keep track of runlevels itself, instead they are implemented
entirely by its userspace tools.

See
.BR runlevel (7)
for more details.
.\"
.SH AUTHOR
Written by Scott James Remnant
.RB < scott@netsplit.com >
.\"
.SH REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs at
.RB < https://launchpad.net/upstart/+bugs >
.\"
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright \(co 2009 Canonical Ltd.
.br
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
.\"
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR runlevel (7)
.BR init (8)
.BR initctl (8)
.BR shutdown (8)
.BR runlevel (8)