How to get out of runlevel 5 in an emergency?

[Mike Burger]

> I had a problem with my Fedora system at work today which required
> that I get to a root console login to fix it.  The fault (simply a
> network change elsewhere) prevented the system from booting as it
> couldn't mount some necessary NFS drives.
>
> How is one supposed to revert to runlevel 3 (or even 2) to overcome
> this sort of problem?  Is there a grub/boot parameter one can use to
> change the runlevel?
>
> I had to resort to using an installation CD in rescue mode to change
> /etc/inittab, I was then able to boot in runlevel 2, see what was
> wrong and fix it (just an /etc/hosts change in the end).
>
> This seems a rather difficult way to fix what was actually a rather
> trivial fault.

There are a few ways.  If you have access to the physical system and can
log in, then, from a terminal session/console, you can type "init 3".

To boot, Grub will present you with a couple of options, on of which is an
option to edit boot/kernel options (I think it's "a").  At the end of the
kernel/boot line, type "1" or "single" to boot into single user mode, or
"3" to boot to runlevel 3.

I would submit, though, that most of what runs in runlevel 5 will usually
also be started in runlevel 3, so you might be better off bringing the
system up in runlevel 1 (single user mode), first, then, after you've
fixed what you need to, issue "init 5" to bring the system up into
runlevel 5.

-- 
Mike Burger
http://www.bubbanfriends.org

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