Hi Gonzalo,

1) Interrupt the boot process at grub and edit the kernel line of grub to bypass /etc/inittab so that you go to run level 5. If you have a password on your grub file, hit "p" and then enter the proper grub password and then follow the instructions in the link.
2) You can do a "yum -y reinstall initscripts" but it will overwrite a list of files (see below), that are typically not edited, but you might have if you had a unique case to do so.
3) You can do an extract of JUST your /etc/inittab file with a unique command (see below)

There's a way to reinstall just /etc/inittab from the initscripts rpm, but you might have to somehow get that specific rpm to your system), If you have to download it, check the version with rpm -q initscripts if you end up having to download it. If you have your original Red Hat install disk, you might be able to find the one you need there unless you've taken some updates and have a newer version than what came on your install disk.

• FOR YOUR REFERENCE: The rpm is initscripts, but to determine that, use "yum provides /etc/inittab"

yum provides /etc/inittab
initscripts-[VERSION]

• So that command will show you what the name of the rpm is, initscripts-[VERSION].

Next you want to see what files are installed as a with that package, so run this rpm command:

rpm -qc initscripts
 # output follows
/etc/X11/prefdm
/etc/adjtime
/etc/inittab
/etc/networks
/etc/rc.d/rc.local
/etc/rc.d/rc0.d/S00killall
/etc/rc.d/rc0.d/S01halt
/etc/rc.d/rc1.d/S99single
/etc/rc.d/rc2.d/S99local
/etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S99local
/etc/rc.d/rc4.d/S99local
/etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S99local
/etc/rc.d/rc6.d/S00killall
/etc/rc.d/rc6.d/S01reboot
/etc/sysconfig/init
/etc/sysconfig/netconsole
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo
/etc/sysconfig/readonly-root
/etc/sysctl.conf
# make a backup of the files if you want:
rpm -qc initscripts | perl -ne 'print;chomp;system("/bin/cp $_ $_.bak")'

You can do a yum reinstall of the rpm named initscripts, but it will reinstall -ALL- of those files above. If you care about any of them (maybe you changed some and want to keep the changes), then you might want to only extract one of the files, the /etc/inittab file.

Please read both methods before proceeding and pick one that suits you
METHOD 1 NOTE: This method reinstalls all the files listed previously
1) First Method (you will reinstall all of the files listed from 'rpm -qc initscripts')

Interrupt the boot process at grub and edit the kernel line of grub to bypass /etc/inittab so that you go to run level 5

NOTE: BEFORE PROCEEDING: This command below will reinstall the previously mentioned files:
- So if needed, copy up the previously mentioned files first, such as /bin/cp /etc/NAMEOFFILE /etc/NAMEOFFILE.bak, and so forth, see example script I made above to make a backup.
- to back up the files:

rpm -qc initscripts | perl -ne 'print;chomp;system("/bin/cp $_ $_.bak")'

• To reinstall initscripts to include /etc/inittab: this will work if you are able to see a yum repository,, see notes above.

yum -y reinstall initscripts

2) Second Method NOTE: - extract just the one file you want
- Download the proper version of the initscripts-[VERSION] maybe from access.redhat.com or your install disk.
IMPORTANT -- SEE THIS REFERENCE BEFORE RUNNING THE BELOW

rpm2cpio initscripts-[ENTER-THE-VERSION-HERE].rpm | cpio -ivd ./etc/inittab

• That will not put it into /etc/inittab - but in whatever directory you happen to be in. To reinstall the inittab file directly to /etc/inittab, run:

rpm2cpio initscripts-[ENTER-THE-VERSION-HERE].rpm | cpio -ivd /etc/inittab

Side note: when you see that progress bar, hit "esc" key to see what's going on.

Let us know how this goes,

Kind Regards,
Remmele