smithw@hamblin.math.byu.edu (William V. Smith) (10/18/90)
Don't type "c", just wait awhile...possibly up to an hour, and it will "find" the parent netinfo server. If you can't wait, just type c and become superuser, kill and restart netinfod. -Bill
velasco@kingkong.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) (10/18/90)
Every once in a while, someone resets our NeXT or turns it off. When
it reboots, it gives a message something like this, "Cannot find parent
NetInfo server. Still trying. Talk to your system administrator if
you are having problems." I talk to him and within a few days (they
are very busy now) he does some magical thing to it to get it started
again. It wasn't doing that until he installed some network package or
something. He is not sure why it can't find the parent NetInfo
server. I think that he even said that the NeXT *is* the parent
NetInfo server. Does anyone have any ideas as to what I could suggest
to him. When we first got it, you could turn it off and on again and
even though it would take a long time to reboot, it didn't need this
kind of intervention by a super-user.
Thanks, in advance.
--
________________________________________________
<>___, / / | ... and he called out and said, "Gabriel, give |
/___/ __ / _ __ ' _ / | this man an understanding of the vision." |
/\__/\(_/\/__)\/ (_/_(/_/|_ |_______________________________________Dan_8:16_|amarcum@next.com (Alan M. Marcum) (10/25/90)
velasco@kingkong.ucsd.edu (Gabriel Velasco) in <velasco.656198052@kingkong>: > Every once in a while, someone resets our NeXT or turns it off. When > it reboots, it gives a message something like this, "Cannot find parent > NetInfo server. Still trying. Talk to your system administrator if > you are having problems." When a NetInfo daemon starts up for a domain (e.g., the machine's local domain), it tries to contact a server process for the parent domain (e.g., the root domain). In a NetInfo network (as opposed to a non-NetInfo network), the default server machine for the local domain's parent is broadcasthost. So, the local NetInfo daemon sends a request to the broadcasthost -- i.e., it broadcasts the request, waiting for some process to respond. (Side note: recall that broadcast packets typically do not cross subnet boundaries. That's why, unless you play a couple of games, you need a server for the domain on each subnet. Regardless, for performance reasons, you SHOULD have a server, either clone or master, on each subnet.) One other thing happens when a NetInfo daemon starts: it checks the consistency of the NetInfo database. During this time, it will not respond to any incoming NetInfo queries. So, during startup, the daemon for the local domain tries to contact a server for its parent domain. But, the daemon for the parent is busy checking its database, and won't respond. Eventually, the parent domain's daemon will finish checking its database, and, if the child domain is still broadcasting, will respond to the bind request. As someone mentioned, just wait a bit. Yes, it could take a while; we recommend you wait at least 20 minutes unless you KNOW something is wrong. (Why 20? It's longer than we've ever had to wait, and we run a pretty big NetInfo network. If you have a four-level hierarchy, or a very broad three-level hierarchy, or a very dispersed network with many clone servers, you might have to wait longer.) ----- Alan M. Marcum NeXT Technical Support