Description of Problem: Red Hat init scripts are all started in the wrong order. I've entered bugs about this before. My specific problem is that when autofs is started, it doesn't look at NIS maps, because NIS hasn't been started yet! So no NIS automaps are looked at. I'm not a casual user of red hat, I use it in the enterprise and have been doing so for years. This has always been a problem... You guys have GOT to do a better job of looking at dependencies when determining the order of your init scripts. Another example of this, which I came across while looking for this bug to be reported. In bug #53981 for example, the user's NIS automaps are not being used, because the PCMCIA cards haven't been initialized yet. Let me give you a clue: you have to initialize services which other services will depend upon before you initialize the dependent services! Otherwise they will not work! Here's an even better clue: 1. Start kernel (no, that's not an init script) 2. Initialize all hotplug hardware (like PCMCIA and USB devices) 3. Initialize network Interfaces (including PCMCIA interfaces) 4. Start network services that other services will need to work properly, like NIS, DNS, etc. 5. Start all other (dependent) services If you don't do this, things will not work. It's really that simple. You are currently using the order 1->3->5->2->4 or something like that. That's just screwy. You can't initialize your network before all your interface drivers are loaded! C'mon people, it's just common sense! Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): ALL How Reproducible: ALWAYS Steps to Reproduce: 1. Run Red Hat Linux 2. Use all components 3. Watch stuff break Actual Results: Services will not start, or not start properly Expected Results: Stuff should work properly! Additional Information:
P.S. when I say in the first paragraph that "this has always been a problem," I'm referring to the poor ordering of your init scripts, not specifically NIS being started out of order. You did actually get that one right, in the past.
Closing bugs on older, no longer supported, releases. Apologies for any lack of response. Realistically, this will be fixed by moving to a dependency based-system; it probably won't be changed in the current chkconfig system.