Unable to get services list using system-config-services and reboot is stuck at "INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel"

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
  • initscripts

Issue

  • When running "shutdown -r now" or "reboot" the server does not shutdown successfully. The following messages are shown and there is no response from remote ssh or telnet:
        INIT: Switching to runlevel: 6
        INIT: Sending processes the TERM signal
        INIT: no more processes left in this runlevel
  • Running system-config-services does not return the services list.

Resolution

Scenario 1:

The symlink /etc/rc6.d is missing, so the server cannot reboot. It can be fixed by recreating the soft link like below:

    # cd /etc/
    # ln -s rc.d/rc6.d rc6.d
Scenario 2:

An altered to blank /etc/rc.d/rc. Restoring /etc/rc.d/rc to default settings will fix the problem.

Scenario 3:

/etc/inittab is empty. Restore /etc/inittab.

Root Cause

The root cause might be various but most probably configuration files in /etc/ are either empty or missing. See Resolution for more details on possible root causes.

Diagnostic Steps

Scenario 1:

The output of the rpm -Va command shows that the symlink is missing:

missing     /etc/rc6.d
Scenario 2:

The output of the rpm -Va command shows that /etc/rc.d/rc has been modified:

S.5....T.    /etc/rc.d/rc
Scenario 3:

The output of the rpm -Va command shows that /etc/inittab has been modified:

S.5....T.  c /etc/inittab

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