I have a script in /etc/rcS.d which basically just sets a variable: DISKSTATE="blah" ; export DISKSTATE Then later during bootup, in /etc/rc3.d i have another script which calls that variable. The problem is , the variable is always empty. It's losing it's value even though i exported it early during bootup. How can keep the value of the variable throughtout the system bootup!? Any help would be greatly appreciated. p.s. I've tried a workaround, instead of making a variable, i would write to a tmp file.... BUT...you cant write to the disk during bootup. why not?

1. You can't set a variable in a script and then get its value in the other, because... this is the way it works! When you run a process (in this case a shell) it has its private environment, that is a memory area. In this env you can set variables for your private use. Exporting a variable simply means: when your process will span a new process, this will inherit your variable. In effect exporting is a way to pass parameters to your children processes (example: DISPLAY variable). See man page exec(2), the envp[] parameter. 2. I read in /etc/rcS.d/README, that after the execution of S30rootusr I have / and /usr mounted read-only. I think they will be mounted read-write by S40standardmounts.sh