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I am running Ubuntu 13.10, and I'm pretty new to Linux. I tried: 

$ sudo apt-get install chkconfig

Package chkconfig is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source

E: Package 'chkconfig' has no installation candidate

I manually downloaded the package and unzipped it. The resulting folder has a file called:

chkconfig.install

But how do I run this? I tried this, but it didn't work.

$ sudo chkconfig.install
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3
  • chkconfig is a redhat-ism. In Ubuntu we use upstart instead of sysvinit as used by redhat. Why is chkconfig no longer available in Ubuntu? "update-rc.d" no need to manually download or install anything. Commented Sep 6, 2014 at 21:58
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about programming. It would have been a better fit for askubuntu.com Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 19:45
  • 2
    I voted too for closing (even when I upvoted the question), but I would rather recommend migration to unix.stackexchange.com . Commented Dec 15, 2016 at 0:25

9 Answers 9

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66

The command chkconfig is no longer available in Ubuntu.The equivalent command to chkconfig is update-rc.d.This command nearly supports all the new versions of ubuntu.

The similar commands are

update-rc.d <service> defaults update-rc.d <service> start 20 3 4 5 update-rc.d -f <service> remove
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To list the configuration of a specific service run: "update-rc.d -f -n SERVICE remove" (-n means dry-run for the remove which results in a listing of all the links configured for that service)
I can recommend to read this for explanation of update-rc.d jamescoyle.net/cheat-sheets/791-update-rc-d-cheat-sheet
19

In Ubuntu /etc/init.d has been replaced by /usr/lib/systemd. Scripts can still be started and stoped by 'service'. But the primary command is now 'systemctl'. The chkconfig command was left behind, and now you do this with systemctl.

So instead of:

chkconfig enable apache2

You should look for the service name, and then enable it

systemctl status apache2 systemctl enable apache2.service

Systemd has become more friendly about figuring out if you have a systemd script, or an /etc/init.d script, and doing the right thing.

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11

sysv-rc-conf is an alternate option for Ubuntu. 

sudo apt-get install sysv-rc-conf sysv-rc-conf --list xxxx
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What does the: sysv-rc-conf --list xxxx do?
actually it is very similar to chkconfig --list xxxxx (xxxx means your program) chkconfig --list http will give your httpd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
see below same output as chkconfig root@debian:/home/tharanga/sto# sysv-rc-conf --list apache2 apache2 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
I get the same error with chkconfig as sysv-rc-conf, ie. "Package sysv-rc-conf is not available, but is referred to by another package". Its maddening that a well konwn and easy to use tool gets removed, and replaced with something non-standard we have to start over again to learn how to install, and how to use.
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alias chkconfig=sysv-rc-conf chkconfig --list

syntax 

sysv-rc-conf command line usage: sysv-rc-conf --list [service name] sysv-rc-conf [--level <runlevels>] <service name> <on|off>
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Note that I want to know how to run the: chkconfig.install. Also in case if I run into such a file another time
2

Chkconfig is no longer available in Ubuntu.

Chkconfig is a script. You can download it from here.

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2

Install this package in Ubuntu:

apt install sysv-rc-conf

its a substitute for chkconfig cmd.

After install run this cmd: 

sysv-rc-conf --list

It'll show all services in all the runlevels. You can also run this:

sysv-rc-conf --level (runlevel number ex:1 2 3 4 5 6 )

Now you can choose which service should be active in boot time.

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Writing in from 2024: I was unable to install sysv-rc-conf from 18.04 onwards.
1

The following command do the same on Ubuntu:

systemctl list-dependencies

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0

But how do I run this? I tried typing: sudo chkconfig.install which doesn't work.

I'm not sure where you got this package or what it contains; A url of download would be helpful. Without being able to look at the contents of chkconfig.install; I'm surprised to find a unix tool like chkconfig to be bundled in a zip archive, maybe it is still yet to be uncompressed, a tar.gz? but maybe it is a shell script?

I should suggest editing it and seeing what you are executing.

sh chkconfig.install or ./chkconfig.install ; which might work....but my suggestion would be to learn to use update-rc.d as the other answers have suggested but do not speak directly to the question...which is pretty hard to answer without being able to look at the data yourself.

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0

As mentioned by @jerry you can add services with the below command.

update-rc.d <service> defaults update-rc.d <service> start 20 3 4 5 update-rc.d -f <service> remove

To validate them check the above commands you can check /etc/rc*.d/ directory where service start with "k" means it will not execute during the boot and service start with "S" will start during the boot.

# for runlevel symlinks: ls /etc/rc*.d/

In the below screenshot you can see apache2 starting in runlevel2(S02apache2) and stopping in runlevel1(K01apache2)

enter image description here

enter image description here

You can also check the service status with the below command where "+" means service is in running state "-" is in stopped.

service --status-all

enter image description here

OR

install sysv-rc-conf utility.

apt-get install sysv-rc-conf example sysv-rc-conf --level 2345 apach22 on man sysv-rc-conf
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