Disable colour output from /etc/init.d scripts?

Question

On RedHat/CentOS systems, all of the service management scripts in /etc/init.d (and also run by the "service" command) produce color output. (i.e. the "[ OK ]" and "[FAILED]" strings.) How do I disable this? (The color-producing escape sequences are making the webistrano output more ugly than it needs to be.)

Answer 1

Check out /etc/sysconfig/init. The top lines on my CentOS 5.x system:

# color => new RH6.0 bootup
# verbose => old-style bootup
# anything else => new style bootup without ANSI colors or positioning
BOOTUP=color

Changing the BOOTUP line to something like nocolor eliminates the formatting for all init scripts.

If you just want to disable formatting on one of your scripts, add:

BOOTUP=nocolor

after the line that reads:

/etc/init.d/functions