Technical:Booting:Server

From K12LTSP Wiki

Boot RH9 & FC1 Server To Runlevel 3

As installed, these K12LTSP versions boot the server console to a graphical interface. You can unplug your mouse and keyboard from the server after it's booted, but suppose there's a power cut? Then your server won't reboot properly, and neither will your clients.

On many systems, to run a server "headless" you would edit the line in /etc/inittab which contains

id:5:initdefault:

to read:

id:3:initdefault:

The problem is, that will also stop the display manager from running on the clients.

You need to figure out which display manager is being used (default is gdm) and then disable the Xserver on the console in the appropriate place.

For gdm, the config file is /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf. Down near the bottom of that file are three sections headed:

[servers]
[server-Standard]
[server-Terminal]

Just comment out everything below [servers]. (It's a good idea to use ## to note where you changed).

If you're is using kdm or xdm, you need to edit the /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers file and comment out the line that says:

:0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X

Restart the display manager, and presto, no more X on the console, but you still have X on the workstations. If you ever need to run X on the console, then you can just run:

startx