[comp.unix.aux] A/UX crashes when started...

ulfis@nada.kth.se (Anders Ulfheden) (01/10/91)

We have A/UX version 2.0 running on a CI with 8 megs and EtherPort II ethernet
card with version 1.1 driver. All fine.

After experimenting with network subnetting I can't restart the machine.
I have tried to restore the configuration files for domainname and netaddr.
According to boot messages the network configuration seems ok again.

During boot process everything seems fine; all commands in /etc/rc are executed
without errors. After this the mouse hangs, garbage is displayed in menubar.

I have the A/UX console up during boot, but the garbage described above doen't
appear in console window. I have also tried to boot the machine with
launch -sv (verbose option), but then the machine restarts instead of halting.

Is there any way to start vi before launch command (I have noticed the ed
command but doesn't know the ed commands) so that I can edit files?

Is there any way to boot the machine in single-user mode?

Any help appreciated.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  ANDERS ULFHEDEN
|  USENET:  ULFIS@NADA.KTH.SE
|  ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
|  STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
-- 
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Anders Ulfheden
|  USENET:  ulfis@nada.kth.se
|  Royal Institute of Technology

rindle@informatik.uni-ulm.de (Kurt Rindle) (01/24/91)

In article <1991Jan9.222915.2593@nada.kth.se>, ulfis@nada.kth.se (Anders
Ulfheden) writes:
> 
> We have A/UX version 2.0 running on a CI with 8 megs and EtherPort II ethernet
> card with version 1.1 driver. All fine.
> 
> After experimenting with network subnetting I can't restart the machine.
> I have tried to restore the configuration files for domainname and netaddr.
> According to boot messages the network configuration seems ok again.
> 
> During boot process everything seems fine; all commands in /etc/rc are executed
> without errors. After this the mouse hangs, garbage is displayed in menubar.
> 
> I have the A/UX console up during boot, but the garbage described above doen't
> appear in console window. I have also tried to boot the machine with
> launch -sv (verbose option), but then the machine restarts instead of halting.
> 
> Is there any way to start vi before launch command (I have noticed the ed
> command but doesn't know the ed commands) so that I can edit files?
> 
> Is there any way to boot the machine in single-user mode?
> 
> Any help appreciated.
> 
> +------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> |  ANDERS ULFHEDEN
> |  USENET:  ULFIS@NADA.KTH.SE
> |  ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
> |  STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
> -- 
> +------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> |  Anders Ulfheden
> |  USENET:  ulfis@nada.kth.se
> |  Royal Institute of Technology


Dear Anders,

the only possibility to edit files from the Startup Utility is ed. Look in
the manual A/UX Text Editing Tools. It should be no problem because you will
only need a few commands like print, substitute, write and quit or so.

Do you use a color screen witb your Mac? If so, you should change the monitoir
control panel to black and white in order to read the "garbage" in your menubar.

To boot in single user mode, you also have to use the ed editor from the
Startup application. change the line
is:2:initdefault
to
is:s:initdefault,
that is not multiuser (2) but singleuser (s). This should be reversed later.

Another idea is to use the autorecovery partition each time before you implement
some critical changes for saving a copy of the old file. Use eupdate and
eu for this. Make your changes, reboot and if your system then refuses to
boot, use the esch utility to resote the old state.

So far,

Kurt--
Kurt Rindle
rindle@informatik.uni.ulm.de