DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / openrc / openrc.8.en
OPENRC(8) System Manager's Manual (smm) OPENRC(8)

openrc — stops and starts services for the specified runlevel

openrc [-n, --no-stop] [-o, --override] [runlevel]

openrc first stops any services that are not in the specified runlevel unless --no-stop is specified, then starts any services in the runlevel and stacked runlevels added by rc-update that are not currently started. If no runlevel is specified, we use the current runlevel.

There are some special runlevels that you should be aware of:

sysinit
Brings up any system specific stuff such as /dev, /proc and optionally /sys for Linux based systems. It also mounts /lib/rc/init.d as a ramdisk using tmpfs where available unless / is mounted rw at boot. openrc uses /lib/rc/init.d to hold state information about the services it runs. sysinit always runs when the host first starts should not be run again.
boot
Generally the only services you should add to the boot runlevel are those which deal with the mounting of filesystems, set the initial state of attached peripherals and logging. Hotplugged services are added to the boot runlevel by the system. All services in the boot and sysinit runlevels are automatically included in all other runlevels except for those listed here.
single
Stops all services except for those in the sysinit runlevel.
reboot
Changes to the shutdown runlevel and then reboots the host.
shutdown
Changes to the shutdown runlevel and then halts the host.

You should not call any of these runlevels yourself. Instead you should use init(8) and shutdown(8) and let them call these special runlevels.

, --no-stop
Do not stop any services.
, --override
Override the next runlevel to change into when leaving single user or boot runlevels
, --service
Run the service specified with the rest of the arguments.
, --sys
Output the RC system type, if any.
, --help
Display usage information and exit.
, --nocolor
Disable color output.
, --version
Display software version.
, --verbose
Run verbosely.
, --quiet
Run quietly (repeat to suppress errors).

openrc-run(8), rc-status(8), rc-update(8), init(8), shutdown(8)

Roy Marples ⟨roy@marples.name⟩

May 2, 2009 OpenRC