It's also responsible for mounting the filesystems (the job done in full-size Linux by "mount -a"). The stuff about starting bash or not has to be right for synchronisation to work (synchronisation makes the player exit with a return code that causes init to respawn the player binary only, and not enter bash or reboot the unit). You can probably determine the value in question by running the player from the shell, then making it exit using "emptool --restart".

You also need to not be starting bash if it's not there (consumer image).

Peter