Another look at run levels look at a line that gets run when we enter run level 5: l5:5:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 5 The command executed is /etc/init.d/rc this is a script that looks in the directory: /etc/rcN.d This is distro-dependent. redhat: also in /etc/rcN.d SuSE: /sbin/init.d/rcN.d look inside your /etc/init.d/rc for the run level scripts location for your distro.