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Accepted
CharlesB
Asked: 2017-05-12 05:27:37 +0800 CST

systemctl doesn't recognize my service: Default-Start contains no runlevels, aborting

  • 772

I want to define a simple service to be started at boot, being on Ubuntu server 16.10. So I have created a /etc/init.d/mydaemon

I somehow messed up between upstart and systemd: at first I thought I had to setup an upstart service. So after converting my file to an upstart syntax, I ran update-rc.d mydaemon defaults.

I figured out my error and ran update-rc.d mydaemon remove, converted to systemd syntax, and ran systemctl enable mydaemon, but get the error:

mydaemon.service is not a native service, redirecting to systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable mydaemon
update-rc.d: error: mydaemonDefault-Start contains no runlevels, aborting.
ubuntu

4 Answers

  1. I had the same error when porting a sysv script from a redhat box to ubuntu. I needed to add some headers to the script

    ### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          my-service-name
# Required-Start:    $all
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: your description here
### END INIT INFO

    found in https://askubuntu.com/questions/909523/default-start-contains-no-runlevels-aborting

    • 25
  2. Best Answer

    The problem was the location of the file, on Ubuntu server it expects it in /etc/systemd/system, /etc/init.d/ is for legacy files.

    • 13

  3. Just to add on to the answer from @CharlesB - when I got into this state I was able to simply move the file from /etc/init.d/ to /etc/systemd/system/ and rerun the command and it worked properly:

    sudo mv /etc/init.d/mydaemon /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl enable mydaemon
    • 9

  4. I had the same error and I fixed it putting the default start information, as follow:

    vi /etc/init.d/greenbone-security-assistant

    Change from:

    # Default-Start:

    to:

    # Default-Start: 2 3 4 5

    :wq

    root@kali:/etc/init.d# systemctl enable greenbone-security-assistant

    Synchronizing state of greenbone-security-assistant.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.

    Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable greenbone-security-assistant

    • 1