Summary: SLC booting problems

From: Tom Conroy (trc@esd.3com.com)
Date: Fri Dec 28 1990 - 17:02:30 CST


Hi Again Folks:

Yesterday's query about problems with the boot sequence hanging on an SLC
running SunOS 4.0.3c has already generated a good response.

Most answers suggested checking /bin/sh and /dev/console for
existance, permissions and corruption. Alas, both were fine.

Rick Preston suggested the winning answer: check /sbin/sh.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to where /sbin/sh gets referenced as all of
the /etc/rc* scripts seem to use "#! /bin/sh -".

The bourne shell in /sbin was, indeed corrupted. Replacing this with a fresh
copy allowed the workstation to continue a little further along the boot
sequence until it started complaining thet getty was missing, and you don't
seem to get very far without a getty!

After re-booting from tape, I found that several other files in /sbin
were also damaged. Not really wanting to bother to pick apart the entire
filesystem to find what else had been corrupted, I decided to go ahead
and upgrade to 4.1.1 on this SLC.

Everything should be just fine now.

I did receive one suggestion that the SLC seems to be a little bit picky
about how the SCSI chain is terminated and removing the resistor packs
on the Disk Drive might help. As this disk had been functioning just fine
for several months, I don't think that would suddenly stop the system from
rebooting, but it is certainly something to keep in mind for new installs
that just don't quite want to work.

Special thanks to:

bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
aldrich@sunrise.Stanford.EDU (Jeff Aldrich)
dan@BBN.COM (Dan Franklin)
flp@tcs.com (Rick Preston)
jt@deltam.com (jim wills)
louis@tots.logicon.com (Louis Brune)
rick@wiau.medical-biophysics.manchester.ac.uk

Full summary of all responses available upon request.

Thanks again for the incredible ongoing support!

trc

Engineering SysAdm Group
3Com Corporation
Santa Clara, CA
trc@ESD.3Com.COM



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