Re: Help w/ Not-booting Problem
From: Peter T. Breuer (ptb_at_oboe.it.uc3m.es)
Date: 08/31/03
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Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 07:54:21 +0200
Ken Loomis <kloomis@notarealaddress.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 06:31:44 +0200, "Peter T. Breuer" <ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es> wrote:
>>Ken Loomis <kloomis@notarealaddress.com> wrote:
>> Telling you to "open the door" does not presuppose a
>>millimetric exposition of the position of your feet and hands at every
>>moment, partciularly when we can't know where your door is, what colour
>>it is, or what height the handle is at, or how else it may open.
>>
> To someone who has not encountered a door before it could be daunting.
The only response to that is "go away and encounter a door. When you
have learned the basics about them and therefore can converse at a
moderately intelligent level about doors, not the minutae of where to
put your hands and feet at every moment, come back and we'll take it
from there".
> Read the Design of Everyday Things. Some doors are confusing.
>>No - setting the hostname is one element in the boot process. However I
>>took you to mean by the above ("can't boot beyond hostname") instead
>>that you arrive at a shell or login prompt containing the hostname,
>>which would be correct. Be precise, please.
> Now, who's demanding precision?
I am pointing out to you that your peceptions are all skewed. You are
asking for precision where it is NOT required and not giving it where
it IS required. This comes from not understanding the first thing about
what you are talking. It makes a conversation with you alternate
bewteen the exasperating and the impossible.
Give up. You are presently not competent to do what you need done - ask
somebody competent to come round and help you or make yourself
competent. Life is too short to walk you through this long distance for
no pay. Getting information out of you is like extracting teeth. You
should be brimming over with it!
>>What is the real problem?
>>
>>> process? Previously the system has always gone to Gnome (or a prompt
>>> I believe.)
>>
>>Are you saying that you always used to get an X login screen or a text
>>login prompt, and now you get neither?
>>
>>Or are you saying that the boot process hangs somewhere along the way?
>>Well, tell us where it hangs.
> I have had a working system of RedHat Linux 7.2 for several months.
> Suddenly I cannot reboot.
Oh yes you can. Please say what you mean.
> I boot into Grub. I can get as far as
> setting hostname: localhost.localdomain
a) *You* don't do that, and b) that is not a hostname - it is some
INANITY that RH insists on as a default-until-you-fix-me-properly.
For the umpteenth time! Give yourself a proper FQDN with an entry in
/etc/hosts!!!
> /etc/rc.d/rc: /var/run/runlevel.dir: read-only file system
Nothing much wrong with that, goven that you ctrl-c'ed your way to
there.
> I have googled this message and there is some history of it with
> Linux 7.2. but the threads don't indicate any resolution.
Are you crazy? The resolution is to mount it readwrite!
>>Better yet - you look where it hangs, run
>>the script concerned by hand, and see what's up.
>>
> This is beyond my capability at this point
Then make it inside your capability. I'm not coming over to your
house to do it, and looking is a required prerequisite to finding out
what's wrong!
>>>>I am not psychic. You tell me what's wrong and I may be able to offer
>>>>a suggestion as to how to go about tackling it.
>>
>>> Earlier post laid out the problem.
>>
>>This is usenet. I don't see "earlier posts".
>>
> Doesn't your newsreader thread?
You don't understand. Usenet is not a timewise medium. Your "earlier"
post may be my "later" post. And it may not be on my server (I only
keep 200 posts at maximum). I may have read it and forgotten about it
and discarded it. You cannot know. Therefore you cannot suppose that I
have seen and/or have available your earlier post. And in any case,
I wouldn't be able to see it while answering your present post.
>>> 0. Apache and SSL [were] working fine for several months.
>>> 1. Yesterday [I] couldn't get into [the] Apache Web server.
>>
>> Are other people experiencing the same problem? Are you
>>saying that the web server is not running? Those would be
>>(respectively) reliable evidence of malaise, and a fact.
>>
> I don't know if others could not get in. I attempted to solve the
> problem before others might experience it.
I'm sorry - the problems sounds purely personal. Why did you attempt to
fix something without checking that it was broke?
>>> 2.[I] refreshed the router, [I] still couldn't get in.
>>
>>Doesn't mean anything as a phrase to me. What router? Nobody mentioned
>>a router. Why do you have a router and how is it involved in your
>>network?
> The router sits behind a cable modem and leads to a hub off of which
> the Linux box runs.
OK, so I guessed correctly on that. And the router is a dns and dhcp
server?
>>> 3. tried to reboot the machine. It hung at setting hostname.
>>
>>Oh!!!!!! You are saying that it looks up its own IP address via an
>>external DNS server on an adsl router! Why don't you say so!
>>Well, don't do that. Give it a proper hostname with a FQDN and
>>put it in /etc/hosts. Something like:
>>
>> 127.0.0.2 nutty.farm.house nutty
>>
>>and set your hostname to "nutty". Don't look it up over the net!
>>You probably have changed IP or something like that, and previously
>>you had your old IP engraved in stone somewhere.
> It set the host name OK. Then the system hung on the next line without
No, it did not. (a) "localhost.localdomain" is not a host name - it's
like "whatdyamacallit". It's a stand-in waiting for you to give it a
proper hostname instead. (b) it didn't.
> a prompt.
Fix! Stop denying and just fix!
> I never changed the IP address.
Nobody said you did! Your ISP does that!
> At some point a while back the Linux
> box name got changed to localhost (not by any deliberate human means),
> which I was not happy about. The directions I found to rename it were
> quite convoluted and I never got to it.
They could not be more simple. Does "man hostname" not work on your
box? Is not /etc/sysconfig readable by you?
>>I believe you are saying that you can't look up your own hostname by
>>inverse DNS resolution over the net from an external dns server. Is
>>that correct?
> I don't think so.
I do think so.
> I plugged a Windows notebook with Apache and SSL
> into where the Linux box was and it works fine.
That's no indication. Why do you work so hard at denying these things
instead of looking?
>>Maybe the external dns server has changed IP. Maybe you have. Tell us
>>about your networking.
>>
> The notebook stand-in works fine.
That is not what I asked. Tell us about your networking.
>>No, you're not taking enough trouble with the system.
> I know, I know, I wish I could devote more time, but there are a lot
I didn't say "time", I said "trouble".
> of other demands on my time.
>>> read what I could regarding Linux, I'd love to learn more, but there
>>> are not just not enough hours in the day to devote to it.
>>
>>It takes no time! What you are saying is that you are so technically
>>challenged that it takes YOU hours to figure out anything. That doesn't
>>apply to anyone else. It takes the rest of us no time at all, since we
>>have normal technical intelligence, and "open the door" is not something
>>that we need to "study" in order to do.
>>
> I'm sure that a considerable amount of study has gotten you to where
> you are.
No, none has ever been needed. I suppose people say that you must have
spent a lot of time studying in order to be able to walk down all those
strange roads and open all those weird doors?
>>> Ironically, I had planned on spending this weekend figuring out how to
>>> upgrade Apache and SSL.
>>
>>Don't. Just do it. It's not a job that requires thinking or
>>intelligence. Install a new apache compiled with support for ssl.
>>Check that it works at least as well as old. End of story.
> I haven't been able to get the RPM to work. It keeps crapping out
> when it hits the net, but that's an issue for another day.
No it isn't. As I keep telling you and you seem not to understand until
a clue-by-4 hits you round the ears, YOUR NETWORKING IS BROKE. Fix it.
>>You appear to have a networking problem. Probably external. Probably
>>caused by misconfigured networking in the first place, and exposed by a
>>change in IP address either of your dns server or of your own IP
>>address.
>>
>>The simplest fix is to give yourself a hostname and a resolution
>>mechanism that do not rely on external sources. Fin.
>>
>>But your netconfig is fscked anyway, and you want to hire someone
>>competent to set up your network instead of breaking your
>>insufficiently qualified head for hours on the mundane details of
>>common or garden networking.
> My network was lovely until XP came along. I agree that I can't
> afford to focus too much on it. However, I have about a hundred users
Then I suggest you afford to focus on it.
> who need to get access to this server.
> Let me ask you this. If I unplug the Linux box from the network, why
> won't it boot?
Probably because, as I keep telling you, you are getting your hostname
by reverse name resolution from a DNS server that you cannot reach.
Cease. Desist. Do it properly. Stop blathering and
a) provide data
b) do the fixes that you are asked to do
The first thing you need to do is give yourself a proper hostname and
an entry for it in /etc/hosts. Do it.
Peter
- Next message: Peter T. Breuer: "Re: Linux Replacing Windows on the Desktop, I Think Not! (was Re: Same concerns as a real American)"
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- In reply to: Ken Loomis: "Re: Help w/ Not-booting Problem"
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