[OT-RH9] SOLVED -> INIT Respawning Problem

[Don]

Thanks Tommy!

Per your directions, did

$ ls -l /dev/tty[3-6]

tty3 - tty6 all showed "input/output error"

Ended up doing

rm --force tty3

as the file was really corrupt.  Read the man on MAKEDEV and actually used
the -S and -n options to see the exact commands, then used them to recreate
the tty's.  Everything seems to be back to normal now.

Thanks again!!

Don







-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-list-admin at redhat.com
[mailto:fedora-list-admin at redhat.com]On Behalf Of Tommy Reynolds
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 10:55 AM
To: fedora-list at redhat.com
Subject: Re: [OT-RH9] INIT Respawning Problem


Uttered "Don" <7mgte at earthlink.net>, spake thus:

> INIT: Id "3" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes.
> INIT: Id "4" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes.
> INIT: Id "5" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes.
> INIT: Id "6" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes.
>
> Now I am guessing the IDs represent either runlevels or virtual terminals
> (only alt-F1 and alt-F2 seem to do anything) and that the X server is
> somehow corrupted I cannot get XFree86 to start.

The "id" is the first field from the offending line in
"/etc/inittab".

> 3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
> 4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
> 5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
> 6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

Each /dev/tty[3-6] is a virtual terminal implemented by the kernel
itself, so you _will_ have them.  Make sure you have the correct
entries.  Here are mine:

$ ls -l /dev/tty[3-6]
crw-------    1 root     root       4,   3 Feb  6 09:05 /dev/tty3
crw-------    1 root     root       4,   4 Feb  6 09:05 /dev/tty4
crw-------    1 root     root       4,   5 Feb  6 09:05 /dev/tty5
crw-------    1 root     root       4,   6 Feb  6 09:05 /dev/tty6

Make sure these haven't been deleted or corrupted.  If so, restore
them using MAKEDEV.  Do a "man MAKEDEV" to find out more.

> Some other suggested solutions refer to possible file corruption, but
> provide no information on identifying which files might be corrupt or how
to
> restore them.  If it is a file corruption problem, is the only solution to
> re-install?

See above.

> Any suggestions on where to look for a complete debugging guide/solution
to
> this problem will be greatly appreciated!!

1) Never try to debug X11 in runlevel 5; you are correctly using
   runlevel 3 for this.

2) Don't try to jimmie the X11 configuration scripts yet.  Once INIT
   has been mollified, try to reconfigure X11: this is the #1 trouble
   shooting technique for X11 problems.  Just do a:

   # redhat-config-xfree86

   and accept the defaults.  Immediately try to:

   # startx

   and see what happens.


Cheers!