SUMMARY: Console is Hung

From: Gregory G. Goldstein - Email: goldsteg@cna.org (goldsteg@cna.org)
Date: Fri Apr 26 1996 - 08:39:41 CDT


I receive several replies to my most recent post about the console being hung.
Unfortunately, none of them worked and I had to reboot the system (it needed a
good reboot anyway). I had the most luck w/Reply #3 (see below), but when I
exited out of openwin the terminal was still hung. I am attaching all the
replies that I received, they MAY help others experiencing similiar problems
with their consoles hanging. At the end of this message, you will see a copy of
my original post.

Thanks to all who replied!!

Gregory Goldstein
ggg@cna.org
The Center For Naval Analyses

=============================== Reply #1 =============================
E-Mail: cledbett@homeaccount.com
Just a shot in the dark, but are you respawing these inittab entries?
My inittabs all look like this:

sc:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/sac -t 300
co:234:respawn:/usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` console login: "
-T sun -d /dev/console -l console -m ldterm,ttcompat
=============================== Reply #2 =============================
E-Mail: kwenzel@privateI.com
I've seen this quite a bit with our SS20s. It always happens if you run, as
root, some process from a shell window in OW and quit OW without killing off
the process first. The process gets stuck to the tty or something and the
OW shutdown process is unable to kill it - then the console hangs. Try
looking for any root processes bound to any tty other than "?" and kill them
off - the prompt should return a little while after that.
=============================== Reply #3 =============================
E-Mail: zika@trinity.tamu.edu
Our solution to this problem is to remotely login to the system, su
to root, and then launch openwin. It'll complain about some errors
(not owning the console and whatnot), but will bring up a crippled
openwin environment. Go to the console and quit out of openwin via
the menu. This usually brings things back to the login prompt.
=============================== Reply #4 =============================
E-Mail: mdkail@fv.com
kill -HUP PID-of-ttymon
or
kbd_mode -a > /dev/console
=============================== Reply #5 =============================
E-Mail: bleary@state.ma.us
Is there a job running on the console? some badly behaved daemons take the
console over as their control terminal. do ...
        ps -ft console
If there is a program (other than ttymon) you may want to kill it.
=============================== Reply #6 =============================
E-Mail: daveyp@dcd.pcd.sony.co.uk
You could try (from a remote login) issuing (as root)
kill -1 1
This gives 'init' a boot up the backside. It may take a few seconds for
the prompt to appear.

========================= Original Post =============================
Problem: Console is hung up. I am unable to log on from the console. I don't
         get a console prompt back when I hit return. I tried restarting sac
         and ttymon, but to no avail.

Environment: Sparc Station 10, Solaris 2.4
              inittab looks like this:
              /usr/lib/saf/sac -t 300
              /usr/lib/saf/ttymon -g -h -p "`uname -n` console login: " -T sun -d /dev/console -l console -m ldterm,ttcompa



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:10:58 CDT