topic Re: audit file looping error in Operating System - HP-UX

audit file looping error

Glenn Rose_1 — Sat, 20 Dec 2003 13:44:11 GMT

While upgrading an hp version 11.0 system I ran into the following alert/warning:

file system of audit file has 0% free space left!
an attempt to switch to the backup file failed.
must specify a backup file now!

This is a continual loop, I'm unable to log onto the unit as root or anything else.

I've tried to get into single user mode to see if I can fix the problem that way but am unable to do so. I keep getting a log in / password requirement and the thing is NOT password protected.

I'm a UNIX novice and am very confused about what actions to take.

HELP!

Re: audit file looping error

G. Vrijhoeven — Sat, 20 Dec 2003 14:14:19 GMT

Hi,

If you are not able to log in and you do not have a root shell, i think you have no choice but to reset te server. ( rs)

If the server is done hardware checking, you are able to boot into signle user mode.
IPL> bo pri
interact with ISL: yes
ISL> hpux -is
now the server will boot into signle user mode and you will get a root shell. You can start by mounting all the file systems, but before you can do that you will neef to run a fsck.

fsck -F vxfs -o full /dev/vg00/lvol
mount /usr
fsck -F vxfs -o full /dev/vg00/lvol
mount /var

Now you can use:
http://docs.hp.com/cgi-bin/fsearch/framedisplay?top=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90121/B2355-90121_top.html&con=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90121/00/00/26-con.html&toc=/hpux/onlinedocs/B2355-90121/00/00/26-toc.html&searchterms=log%7caudit&queryid=20031220-121314

Hope this will solve your problem.

Gideon

Re: audit file looping error

Glenn Rose_1 — Sat, 20 Dec 2003 15:42:48 GMT

The Problem still remains that I can not log in to the Single-User Mode.

Re: audit file looping error

Glenn Rose_1 — Sat, 20 Dec 2003 16:05:07 GMT

It says "Please Enter Login Name" then
Password:
The root acount does not work here. Is there some other root like account I should know about or is this even normal or is there a way by this. Is it Posible that I have Locked out the Root acount?

Re: audit file looping error

G. Vrijhoeven — Sat, 20 Dec 2003 17:03:48 GMT

Glenn,

There is no other user like root on UNIX. So if you are not able to log in as root your in trouble. I do not know how to fix this without the root account.
I do have an other option:

If booting in signle user mode does not work you can try booting in lvm maintenace mode. It works the same as booting in signle user mode ( hpux -il i think) but even less software is started ( rc.config.d/* is not sourced and lvm is not loaded )

If this fails i am afraid you must boot from cdrom. There are plenty of threds on that subject posted in this forum so a quick search will get you started.

He good luck.

Gideon

Re: audit file looping error

doug hosking — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 06:19:54 GMT

It sounds like someone has turned on boot authentication on the system. This is a security feature intentionally designed to prevent you from bypassing the password checks when booting in single user mode.
You need to see who set this up and what user/password they set for it. Assuming
I'm right, the text you would see is:

Please enter your login name:

This comes from /sbin/initcond.

Re: audit file looping error

doug hosking — Wed, 24 Dec 2003 06:21:46 GMT

Regrding the error message about auditing, some versions of audomon incorrectly calculated free disk space on disks > 4 GB in size. I don't recall at the moment whether this was ever fully patched in 11.00.