SUMMARY: can't create /var/adm/utmpx

From: John T Wilson (wilsonj@awcdb1.eglin.af.mil)
Date: Wed Jun 21 1995 - 21:58:32 CDT


My original question went something like:

>Sun managers please help. I'm fairly new to Solaris 2.x. I have a
>SPARCclassic running Solaris 2.3 in stand-alone mode (no NIS). When I
>powered the machine up this morning, the initial screen contents looked
>like this:
>
>Boot device: /iommu/sbus/espdma@4,8400000/esp@4,8800000/sd@3,0 File and
>args:
>
>SunOS Release 5.3 Version Generic [UNIX(R) System V Release 4.0]
>Copyright (c) 1983-1993, Sun Microsystemd, Inc.
>configuring network interfaces: le0.
>Hostname: awcdba
>/sbin/rcS: test: argument expected
>
>INIT: Cannot create /var/adm/utmp or /var/adm/utmpx
>INIT: failed write of utmpx entry: " "
>INIT: failed write of utmpx entry: " "
>INIT: SINGLE USER MODE
>
>Type Ctrl-d to proceed with normal startup,
>(or give root password for system maintenance):
>
>A Ctrl-d eventually gets me back to exactly the same screen of stuff
>shown above. The root password gets me in but with /, /usr, and
>/proc all mounted read-only. However, "mount" with no args shows:
>
>/ on /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0 read/write/setuid on Fri Jun 2 06:28:00 1995
>/usr on /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s6 read/write/setuid on Fri Jun 2 06:28:00 1995
>/proc on /proc read/write/setuid on Fri Jun 2 06:28:00 1995
>
>An "ls -lag" of /var/tmp/utmp* shows:
>
>-rw-r--r-- 1 root bin 576 Jun 2 15:10 utmp
>-rw-r--r-- 1 root bin 5952 Jun 2 15:10 utmpx

Well..... I feel really stupid. The problem turned out to be the fact
that I had screwed up an entry in the /etc/vfstab file and couldn't
properly mount the root partition. Thanks to all who responded (listed
below)- some of the replies were helpful in getting / mounted manually so
I could edit /etc/vfstab.

Thanks to:
Uwe Goebel/SAM & NSE <uwe_goebel@MENTORG.COM>
Ric Anderson <ric@seagull.rtd.com>
"Mark S. Anderson" <anderson@neon.mitre.org>
Sean Ward <seanw@amgen.com>
"Tilford, Wayne" <wtilford@lgc.com>
Al Venz <Al.Venz@seag.fingerhut.com>
Jeremy Hunt - Optimation <jeremyh@chiron.nabaus.com.au>
"MR.OMAR" <root@tsd.ksm.com.my>
Yves Hardy <yves@suntech.abcomp.be>
"Michael J. Shon {*Prof Services} Sun Rochester"
Uwe Goebel/SAM & NSE <uwe_goebel@MENTORG.COM>

John T. Wilson
Email wilsonj@awcdb1.eglin.af.mil
Commercial 904-882-8988
DSN 872-8988
FAX 904-882-7942 (JTWILSON on cover sheet- uppercase, no spaces)



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