When to Boot a System

The following table lists system administration tasks and the corresponding boot option that is used to complete the task.

Table 3-2 Booting a System

Reason for System Reboot	Appropriate Boot Option	Information for SPARC Based Systems	Information for x86 Based Systems
Turn off system power due to anticipated power outage.	Turn system power back on	Chapter 5, Shutting Down a System (Tasks)	Chapter 5, Shutting Down a System (Tasks)
Change kernel parameters in the `/etc/system` file.	Reboot the system to run level 3 (multiuser level with NFS resources shared)	SPARC: How to Boot a System to Run Level 3 (Multiuser Level)	x86: How to Boot a System to Run Level 3 (Multiuser)
Perform file system maintenance, such as backing up or restoring system data.	Press Control-D from run level S to bring the system back to run level 3	SPARC: How to Boot a System to Run Level S (Single-User Level)	x86: How to Boot a System to Run Level S (Single-User Level)
Repair a system configuration file such as `/etc/system`.	Interactive boot	SPARC: How to Boot a System Interactively	x86: How to Boot a System Interactively
Add or remove hardware from the system.	Reconfiguration boot (turn on system power after adding or removing devices, if devices are not hot-pluggable)	Adding a System Disk or a Secondary Disk (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems	Adding a System Disk or a Secondary Disk (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Devices and File Systems
Boot the system by using the kernel debugger (`kmdb`) to track down a system problem.	Booting `kmdb`	SPARC: How to Boot the System With the Kernel Debugger (`kmdb`)	x86: How to Boot a System With the Kernel Debugger in the GRUB Boot Environment (`kmdb`)
To recover from a hung system and force a crash dump.	Recovery boot	SPARC: How to Force a Crash Dump and Reboot of the System	x86: How to Force a Crash Dump and Reboot of the System

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	System Administration Guide: Basic Administration Oracle Solaris 11 Express 11/10