Sysinit variables: where to they come from?

From: David Sumbler (david_at_nospam.co.uk)
Date: 12/29/03 

Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 19:19:00 +0000

I started reading the /etc/rc/d/sysinit file from my RedHat 8.0 system
yesterday, hoping that I would learn quite a lot from it - which is
true.

But can somebody explain to me, please, where the variables referred
to come from? For instance, in the first few lines, variables
INITLOG_ARGS, BOOTUP and PROMPT are read. Does init itself set these,
and if so, how would you alter their values if you wanted to?

And the very first section reads:

# Rerun ourselves through initlog
if [ -z "$IN_INITLOG" -a -x /sbin/initlog ]; then
    exec /sbin/initlog $INITLOG_ARGS -r /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
fi

How does IN_INITLOG get given a value for the second run of
rc.sysinit, to prevent a permanent loop? (OK, maybe the answer lies
in the value of INITLOG_ARGS - back to question 1!)

David 

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David Sumbler
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