Live upgrade from RHEL 5.7 to RHEL 6.2

Fri Mar 30 18:47:15 UTC 2012

OK, the fact that tty1 is absent is indicative of a problem. BTW, the 
/etc/inittab file is now consulted by the system only for defining the 
default runlevel, the rest is history there:

http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Technical_Notes/deployment.html

Here is how I would troubleshoot the problem.

1)To ensure you are not facing an X problem (I see you are runlevel 5), 
I would switch the system to runlevel 3, SELinux should be in permissive 
mode (/etc/sysconfig/selinux)  and reboot, so that you can see what 
exactly happens on the console without X and SELinux (if you have 
already described that sorry, I did not have the time to read all the 
thread).

2)If you do not see anything, I would SSH in and inspect the file 
/etc/init/start-ttys.conf, which in my functioning system looks like this:
[root at biotin ~]# cat /etc/init/start-ttys.conf
#
# This service starts the configured number of gettys.

start on stopped rc RUNLEVEL=[2345]

env ACTIVE_CONSOLES=/dev/tty[1-6]
env X_TTY=/dev/tty1
task
script
     . /etc/sysconfig/init
     for tty in $(echo $ACTIVE_CONSOLES) ; do
         [ "$RUNLEVEL" = "5" -a "$tty" = "$X_TTY" ] && continue
         initctl start tty TTY=$tty
     done
end script

3)Inspect the file /etc/init/serial.conf which in my system contains:
start on fedora.serial-console-available DEV=* and stopped rc 
RUNLEVEL=[2345]
stop on runlevel [S016]

instance $DEV
respawn
pre-start exec /sbin/securetty $DEV
exec /sbin/agetty /dev/$DEV $SPEED vt100-nav

4)I would open another ssh session as root and do manually a:
[root at biotin ~]# initctl start tty TTY=tty1
tty (tty1) start/running, process 22670

If something goes wrong in step 4, the process will even not spawn or 
will spawn and die for a reason and you should consult either 
/var/log/messages or /var/log/secure.

GM

Best regards,

-- 
-- 
George Magklaras PhD
RHCE no: 805008309135525

Senior Systems Engineer/IT Manager
Biotechnology Center of Oslo and
the Norwegian Center for Molecular Medicine
EMBnet TMPC Chair

http://folk.uio.no/georgios

Tel: +47 22840535

On 03/30/2012 03:55 PM, Christina Salls wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Georgios Magklaras<georgios at biotek.uio.no>
>
> Thanks for your response.
>
> wrote:
>
>> Do you see the login banner at the console after the boot messages?
>
> No, I do see a graphical login window, but no banner.
>
> Has the system forked the  /sbin/mingetty processes?
>
>
> Interesting.  no tty1
>
> [root at panther tmp]# ps -ef | grep mingetty
> root      2958  5831  0 09:44 pts/0    00:00:00 grep mingetty
> root      4719     1  0 Mar29 tty2     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty /dev/tty2
> root      4721     1  0 Mar29 tty3     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty /dev/tty3
> root      4723     1  0 Mar29 tty4     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty /dev/tty4
> root      4725     1  0 Mar29 tty5     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty /dev/tty5
> root      4727     1  0 Mar29 tty6     00:00:00 /sbin/mingetty /dev/tty6
>
>
>
>> One thing that comes to mind with RHEL 6 is the upstart module. In RHEL 6
>> this replaced the traditional SysVInit system. So, I suggest you take a
>> look via the network login to:
>>
>> 1)ACTIVE_CONSOLES directive in /etc/sysconfig/init.
>>
> # What ttys should gettys be started on?
> ACTIVE_CONSOLES=/dev/tty[1-6]
> # Set to '/sbin/sulogin' to prompt for password on single-user mode
> # Set to '/sbin/sushell' otherwise
> SINGLE=/sbin/sushell
>
>
>> 2)/etc/init/prefdm.conf
>>
> [root at panther init]# more prefdm.conf
> # prefdm - preferred display manager
> #
> # Starts gdm/xdm/etc by preference
>
> start on stopped rc RUNLEVEL=5
>
> stop on starting rc RUNLEVEL=[!5]
>
> console output
> respawn
> respawn limit 10 120
> exec /etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon
>
>
>> 3)/etc/init/tty.conf
>>
> [root at panther init]# more tty.conf
> # tty - getty
> #
> # This service maintains a getty on the specified device.
>
> stop on runlevel [S016]
>
> respawn
> instance $TTY
> exec /sbin/mingetty $TTY
>
> Also, this is what inittab looks like:
>
> id:5:initdefault:
>
> # System initialization.
> si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
>
> l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
> l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
> l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
> l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
> l4:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
> l5:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
> l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6
>
> # Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
> ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now
>
> # When our UPS tells us power has failed, assume we have a few minutes
> # of power left.  Schedule a shutdown for 2 minutes from now.
> # This does, of course, assume you have powerd installed and your
> # UPS connected and working correctly.
> pf::powerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f -h +2 "Power Failure; System Shutting Down"
>
> # If power was restored before the shutdown kicked in, cancel it.
> pr:12345:powerokwait:/sbin/shutdown -c "Power Restored; Shutdown Cancelled"
>
>
> # Run gettys in standard runlevels
> cons:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L `stty -F /dev/ttyS1 speed` ttyS1 vt100
> 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
> 2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
> 3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
> 4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
> 5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
> 6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6
>
> # Run xdm in runlevel 5
> x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon
>
>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> --
>> --
>> George Magklaras PhD
>> RHCE no: 805008309135525
>>
>> Senior Systems Engineer/IT Manager
>> Biotechnology Center of Oslo and
>> the Norwegian Center for Molecular Medicine
>> EMBnet TMPC Chair
>>
>> http://folk.uio.no/georgios
>>
>> Tel: +47 22840535
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>