The solutions (paraphrased) were:
1) Don't get into the situation in the first place --
The problem is that /var/adm doesn't exist because /var couldn't mount.
If a /var/adm is created in the / partition, then even if /var can't
mount, then you won't get stuck.
I knew about this already, but the machine in question didn't happen
to have this preventive measure set up.
Thanks to:
poffen@San-Jose.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Rich Kulawiec <rsk@itw.com>
Jim Harmon <jharmon@telecnnct.com>
2) Crash the machine so many times that fsck on / or /usr fails,
and machine dumps straight into single-user.
I didn't try this since the machine is not doing anything (after
all, it can't boot), so it seemed like I would have to crash it
too many times to be worth the trouble.
Thanks to:
David Stern <dave@davka.gsfc.nasa.gov>
3) Boot off of CDROM or a boot server.
Thanks to:
ramindur@vossnet.co.uk (Ramindur Singh)
Also thanks to:
Joel Lee <jlee@thomas.com>
CHACKOMPALLY JOSEPH AAJ <AAJ@newsin.nec.com.sg>
By way of clarification, I did try to boot into single user (boot -s)
but that didn't help -- I can't explain why. I know that sometimes
if there is a problem with /var (eg /var's fsck fails and so it doesn't
mount) I can get into single-user. Yet other times I cannot. I don't
yet grok the difference, but I haven't made the time to play with it.
Also, I know why /var couldn't mount -- the only question is how to
get it booted up so I could fix the problem. What had happened is
that the SCSI HBA that had the drive with /var failed, and just right
now I cannot arrange to replace the card or move the drive to a good
SCSI bus. My hope was to get the thing to run until I am again nearby
the box.
Orignal query:
|Under Solaris 2.5 (with recommended patches)
|
|If /var cannot be mounted, sometimes I get into a loop that looks like this:
|
| INIT: Cannot create /var/adm/utmp or /var/adm/utmpx
|
| INIT: SINGLE USER MODE
|
| Type Ctrl-d to proceed with normal startup,
| (or give root password for system maintenance): Login incorrect
|
| Type Ctrl-d to proceed with normal startup,
| (or give root password for system maintenance): Login incorrect
|
|etc
|
|
|Note that I don't actually type anything at the password prompt --
|the sparc just pauses for a moment, throws the error, and loops forever.
|
|I was wondering if there was a flag, similar to "boot -b", that can be
|used to get around this problem or if the only solution is to boot off
|of some other device (network, CD-ROM, &c). For various reasons, setting
|up an alternate boot device is troublesome -- if I could bring the machine
|up to single user, I can build a new /var (and whatever else) and continue
|merrily on my way.
---
Arthur Hyun arthur@psi.com
Systems Administrator III v: +1.518.283.8860
PSINet Systems Administration f: +1.518.283.8904
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