This paper is concerned with stability and recur-sive feasibility of constrained linear receding horizon control schemes without terminal constraints and costs. Particular attention is paid to characterize the basin of attraction S of the asymptotically stable equilibrium. For stabilizable linear systems with quadratic costs and convex constraints we show that any compact subset of the interior of the viability kernel is contained in S for sufficiently large optimization horizon N . An analysis at the boundary of the viability kernel provides a connection between the growth of the infinite horizon optimal value function and stationarity of the feasible sets. Several examples are provided which illustrate the results obtained.