The init.d scripts are very useful when it's necessary to run some application once the system is up and running. There are many init.d scripts in almost any GNU/Linux distribution, and they mostly satisfy the needs of an average user. But sometimes it's hard to find either a good or a working init.d script for a less used task.

Additionally, different GNU/Linux distributions very often use different formats for init.d scripts. As an example, an init.d script working under Debian will not work under Gentoo, and vice-versa. When I have time, I'll be adding init.d scripts for all the distributions I'm using.

This book is dedicated to describing various init.d script I've created during my years of work with GNU/Linux. In addition, the book also contains the copies of init.d scripts I'm using on production machines under my control. Practically all the scripts presented in this book require usage of bash, which makes them somewhat less portable, but still very usable nevertheless.

I encourage you to inform me of any mistakes I made while writing those scripts, as well as suggestions as to how I could improve them or add new features.