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gnomed
Asked: 2016-06-18 12:47:14 +0800 CST

How do I change the runlevel on systemd?

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Pretty simple, I am trying to change the runlevel. Everything I find online points me to the file located in:

/etc/init/rc-sysinit.conf

Here I have tried changing the "DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL" to 3 or anything else and it makes no difference (the original value was 2 which didn't make much sense either). No matter what, my machine boots fully and when I check the runlevel command, I see "N 5" as the result every time.

How do I change the runlevel? I would rather not override it through grub or some other workaround mechanism. And I am not looking for how to disable X specifically.

All the instructions I was finding online were a bit old, did something change with 16.04?

boot

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Ubuntu 16.04 uses systemd instead of init and hence the concept of runlevels is replaced by the term targets. So there is indeed a mapping between init-based runlevels and systemd-based targets:

       Mapping between runlevels and systemd targets
   ┌─────────┬───────────────────┐
   │Runlevel │ Target            │
   ├─────────┼───────────────────┤
   │0        │ poweroff.target   │
   ├─────────┼───────────────────┤
   │1        │ rescue.target     │
   ├─────────┼───────────────────┤
   │2, 3, 4  │ multi-user.target │
   ├─────────┼───────────────────┤
   │5        │ graphical.target  │
   ├─────────┼───────────────────┤
   │6        │ reboot.target     │
   └─────────┴───────────────────┘

    Now, to just change the "runlevels" in 16.04, you can use for eg:

    sudo systemctl isolate multi-user.target

    To make this the default "runlevel", you can use:

    sudo systemctl enable multi-user.target
sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target

    From man systemctl

       isolate NAME
       Start the unit specified on the command line and its dependencies and stop all others. If
       a unit name with no extension is given, an extension of ".target" will be assumed.

       This is similar to changing the runlevel in a traditional init system. The isolate command
       will immediately stop processes that are not enabled in the new unit, possibly including
       the graphical environment or terminal you are currently using

    Also have a look at man systemd.special to know more about the targets in systemd.

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