Linux-style /etc/rc.local for HP-UX 11.11

I am running HPUX 11.11 (HPUX 11i) in a QEMU parisc virtual machine for a couple years now, as described here. It uses the classic rcX.d and init.d based approach for scripts to execute while starting up and shutting down.

Here are the steps for HP-UX 11.11.(HPUX 11i) to add /etc/rc.local for executing custom commands at boot and /etc/rc.shutdown for custom commands executed before shutting down.

First, create an init script at the following location with these permissions and ownership:

# ls -l /sbin/init.d/rclocal

-r-xr-xr-x   1 bin        bin           3297 Oct 14 18:13 /sbin/init.d/rclocal

The contents of this script, based off HP-provided example in /sbin/init.d/template, are:

Place symbolic links to the init script from the /sbin/rc3.d directory using the "ln -s" command so that there are two links pointing to the same target as below:

# ln -s /sbin/init.d/rclocal /sbin/rc3.d/K99rclocal
# ln -s /sbin/init.d/rclocal /sbin/rc3.d/S99rclocal
# ls -l /sbin/rc3.d/*rclocal*
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root       sys             34 Oct 14 16:03 /sbin/rc3.d/K99rclocal -> /sbin/init.d/rclocal
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root       sys             34 Oct 14 16:03 /sbin/rc3.d/S99rclocal -> /sbin/init.d/rclocal

Now we can create /etc/rc.local and /etc/rc.shutdown and put stuff to be executed during boot or shutdown respectively. It is important to remember these scripts are sourced by /sbin/init.d/rclocal, so we don't want to put in an exit statement in those scripts. Here are the minimal scripts I have currently.

# ls -l /etc/rc.local /etc/rc.shutdown
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root       sys            173 Oct 14 15:38 /etc/rc.local
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root       sys            220 Oct 14 15:42 /etc/rc.shutdown

/etc/rc.local

# This file is sourced from /sbin/init.d/rclocal
#PATH=/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin
#export PATH
date > /tmp/created-by-rc.local
sync;sync;sync
# DO NOT "exit"!

/etc/rc.shutdown

# This file is sourced from /sbin/init.d/rclocal
#PATH=/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin
#export PATH
date > /tmp/created-by-rc.shutdown
sync;sync;sync
# DO NOT "exit"!

That's it. Now /etc/rclocal should be executed during bootup and /etc/rc.shutdown during shutdown.