It may so happen that one wants to know what's wrong with some configuration, but it is handled at boot time and the initscripts don't provide enough info. An alternative is to use the hook functions scattered about the initscripts, which may or may not be better for your needs. This is my trick to have certain scripts set to bash's trace mode and leave output in a file. It needs one configuration line in etc/rc.conf and a file in etc/rc.d/functions.d/: Example: # /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux ... only_info_pls="*@(/network|/iptables)*:::/root/system/boot/questions/!0-!1-!2.txt" ... This will "trigger" when the name of the script executed matches either */network* or */iptables*, set them to trace mode "-x" and collect their output in files named after the script's name, with "/" replaced by ":". Each of "!0", "!1" .. "!5" undergo this substitution. I get the following files: $ ls -l /root/system/boot/questions/ total 32K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1235 Feb 17 20:38 :etc:rc.d:iptables-start-.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4699 Feb 17 20:37 :etc:rc.d:iptables-stop-.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8802 Feb 17 20:39 :etc:rc.d:network-start-.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4827 Feb 17 20:37 :etc:rc.d:network-stop-.txt The syntax of the variable $only_info_pls is like this: <matcher>:::<output> where <matcher> is matched against the scripts name with bash option extglob set before going to work and reset to its previous state afterwards. <output> defines a file on a filesystem that must be mounted when the monitored script starts. Occurrences of !<n> with <n> from "0" ... "5" are expanded with the appropriate script arguments, and directory separators are replaced with colons. etc/rc.d/functions.d/only_info_pls.sh is too small to make anything more than this post of it, but it proved very useful so far. I tried to make it safe to use even with matchers such as "*/rc.sysinit*" in that the existence of logger(1) and /dev/null are checked before use, and a missing <output> declaration defaults to "only_info_pls.sh-!0", which dumps the trace into the current directory if its writable. clemens # /etc/rc.d/functions.d/only_info_pls.sh # _date: 20100217-2035_ # # to be sourced by bash(1). # see /etc/rc.conf # see /etc/rc.d/functions _iam="/etc/rc.d/functions.d/only_info_pls.sh" # global: ${only_info_pls} ${_only_info_pls_out}, ${_only_info_pls_trig}, # ${_only_info_pls_extglob}, ${_only_info_pls_logger} # initscripts colors from /etc/rc.d/functions: # global: $C_MAIN, $C_OTHER, $C_SEPARATOR, $C_BUSY, $C_FAIL, $C_DONE, # $C_BKGD, $C_H1, $C_H2, $C_CLEAR, $SAVE_POSITION, $RESTORE_POSITION, # $DEL_TEXT, $STAT_COL, $SECOLOR _only_info_pls_prep() { local out0="${0//\//:}" local cmd="${1:-prep}" local devnull="/dev/null" local out1 local out2 local out3 local out4 local out5 shift # case "-${cmd}" in -prep) out1="${1//\//:}" out2="${2//\//:}" out3="${3//\//:}" out4="${4//\//:}" out5="${5//\//:}" _only_info_pls_trig="${only_info_pls%%:::*}" _only_info_pls_out="${only_info_pls##*:::}" : ${_only_info_pls_logger:="logger -s"} : ${_only_info_pls_out:="${_iam##*/}-!0"} _only_info_pls_out="${_only_info_pls_out/!0/${out0}}" _only_info_pls_out="${_only_info_pls_out/!1/${out1}}" _only_info_pls_out="${_only_info_pls_out/!2/${out2}}" _only_info_pls_out="${_only_info_pls_out/!3/${out3}}" _only_info_pls_out="${_only_info_pls_out/!4/${out4}}" _only_info_pls_out="${_only_info_pls_out/!5/${out5}}" [ -w "${devnull}" ] && { type -t "${_only_info_pls_logger%% *}" > ${devnull} || _only_info_pls_logger="echo" : } || { type -t "${_only_info_pls_logger%% *}" || _only_info_pls_logger="echo" : } _only_info_pls_extglob="-u" shopt -q extglob && _only_info_pls_extglob="-s" ;; -colors) C_MAIN="" # main text C_OTHER="" # prefix & brackets C_SEPARATOR="-" # separator C_BUSY="" # busy C_FAIL="" # failed C_DONE="" # completed C_BKGD="<bg>" # backgrounded C_H1="" # highlight text 1 C_H2="" # highlight text 2 C_CLEAR="" SAVE_POSITION=""; RESTORE_POSITION=""; DEL_TEXT="" STAT_COL=80; SECOLOR="neee" ;; esac return 0 } # local hack: info instead of colors! # implemented via /etc/rc.d/functions.d/only_info_pls.sh # see /etc/rc.conf #only_info_pls="" #only_info_pls="*@(/network|/iptables)*:::/root/system/boot/questions/!0-!1-!2.txt" #only_info_pls="*@(/network|/iptables)*:::/root/system/boot/questions/rc.d-network-!1.txt" #only_info_pls="*/network*:::/root/system/boot/questions/rc.d-network-!1-!2.txt" # [ -n "${only_info_pls}" ] && { _only_info_pls_prep prep "$@" ${_only_info_pls_logger} "${_iam}: trigger='${_only_info_pls_trig}' out='${_only_info_pls_out}' \$0='$0' \$*='$*'" # debugging aid: match on both $0 and $1 to catch scripts shopt -s extglob case "${0}x${1}" in ${_only_info_pls_trig}) _only_info_pls_prep colors "$@" [ -w "${_only_info_pls_out}" ] && exec >> "${_only_info_pls_out}" 2>&1 echo echo "=== $(date '+%y%m%d-%H%M') ${_iam}: '${0}' '${*}'" echo set -x ;; esac shopt "${_only_info_pls_extglob}" extglob }