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Linux Boot Process
by admin

In this article, we are going to study the “Linux Boot Process”. During the booting
time of the Linux operating system, the boot process has to go through six basic
stages.

Boot Stage 1
BIOS Checks: When a Linux server or desktop or laptop booted, The processor goes
for Basic Input/Output System or BIOS program and runs it. The BIOS controls do not
control only the first step of the boot process, but BIOS also provides the lowest
level interface to peripheral devices. It means during the BIOS initialization, all
hardware peripheral devices are checked out by BIOS. If BIOS found any hardware is
faulty, you will get a message on your screen. For this reason, BIOS Process is
written into read-only mode. The BIOS then loads into memory whatever program is
residing in the first sector of this device, called the Master Boot Record or MBR.
The MBR is only 512 bytes in size and contains machine code instructions for
booting the machine, called a boot loader, along with the partition table. Once the
BIOS finds and loads the boot loader program into memory,it yields control of the
boot process to it.

Note: The default boot loader for Linux platform is GRUB.

Boot Stage 2
First stage boot loader: The first stage of Boot Loader is a small machine code
binary on MBR. The first stage boot loader loads itself into memory. The first
stage boot loader job is to find out the second stage boot loader and load the
first part of it into memory.
Boot Stage 3
Second stage boot loader: The second stage boot loader loads the kernel into
memory, which in turn loads any necessary modules and mounts the root partition
read-only. Once the second stage boot loader is in memory, it presents the user
with a graphical screen showing the different operating systems or kernels that
have been configured to boot. You can use Arrow keys to select your operating
system for boot.

Boot Stage 4
INIT Program: The Linux operating system kernel transfers the control of the boot
process to the /sbin/init program. The /sbin/init program coordinates the rest of
the boot process and configures the environment for the user.

Boot Stage 5
User Environment Setup: The init program loads all services and user-space tools,
and mounts all partitions listed in /etc/fstab. When the init command starts, it
becomes the parent or grandparent of all of the processes that start up
automatically on the system. First, it runs the /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit script, which
sets the environment path, starts swap, checks the file systems, and executes all
other steps required for system initialization. The init command then runs the
/etc/inittab script, which describes how the system should be set up in each SysV
init runlevel. The init program starts all of the background processes by looking
in the appropriate rc directory for the runlevel specified as the default in
/etc/inittab. The rc directories are numbered to correspond to the runlevel they
represent.

Note: By Default, run level 5 is defined in /ete/inittab file.

Boot Stage 6
Login Screen: The user will get a login screen for the freshly booted Linux system.

Interview Questions for Linux Boot Process chapter

Q1: How many stages a Linux boot process passes during booting time?
Q2: What is First boot loader stage?
Q3: What is Second boot loader stage?
Q4: What is the role of INIT program for RED HAT LINUX?
Q5: Explain RUN LEVELS for Linux Operating systems.
Q6: Difference between inittab and fstab file?
Q7: What does BIOS do during booting?

Filed Under: Linux

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