Can't make special file /sbin/bcheckrc

[Mike Keys]

Our N4000 spontaneously rebooted this evening. After running fsck manually to resolve a filesystem problem, the system booted fine with the exception of the following message:

"Can't make special file /sbin/bcheckrc"

The file is present and permissions are exactly what they are on other N4000's we have. I rebooted the system once it came up cleanly to see if this would go away. It hasn't.

What do I need to to now?

Mike Keys

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom Mike,

ll /sbin/bcheckrc

Compare the output to a working system.

If different, you may wish to manually delete this on the system giving you trouble and try again.

SEP

[Darrel Louis]

Hi Mike,

Have you checked in /etc/shutdownlog why the server rebooted.
Was there a hardware problem?

The script is spawned during boot.
inittab:
brc1::bootwait:/sbin/bcheckrc /dev/console 2>&1 # fsck, etc.


This file contains scripts/commands necessary to -
1) activates LVM (if appplicable).
2) runs eisa_config in automatic mode
(if applicable).
3) checks the file systems before mounting.
(the scripts required for file system specific checking reside in /sbin/fs//bcheckrc)
4) and anything else that should be done before mounting any file systems.

Have you checked with dmesg, for any issues.

Darrel

[Mike Keys]

I'll try the suggestions mentioned. All filesystems mounted fine.

[Mike Keys]

/etc/shutdown shows:

00:40 Sun Jun 18 2006. Reboot after panic: , isr.ior = 0'804073c.c0000000'17052ced

Have no idea what piece of hardware this might be referring to.

'll /sbin/bcheckrc' shows exactly same size and permissions as file on working system.

[Darrel Louis]

Hi Mike,

This type of panic (panic , isr.ior = 0'804073c.c0000000'17052ced) is usually caused by:
1) Hardware failure
2) Someone issuing a TOC
3) Serviceguard issuing a TOC.

Check the /var/tombstones directory. If the ts99 file has a valid timestamp, then you have a hardware issue. q4 will also tell you if it was a TOC(transfer of control) or HPMC(high priority machine check).

If you don't know how to analyze the crash-dump you should log a call with HP-support.

Darrel

[Mike Keys]

ts99 does have a valid timestamp, so seems like it could be hardware related. I will open a case with HP tommorow morning and have the logs analyzed.

[Mike Keys]

I had HP analyze the ts99 log today and it was determined that Processor 0 threw an exception. So, we replaced Processor 0.

However, I am still seeing "Can't make special file /sbin/bcheckrc:' when booting.

Apparently, this isn't affecting the activation of the volume groups and filesystems.

Any suggestions?

[Mike Keys]

FIGURED IT OUT!

Turns out that the line should actually be two lines!!!

Can't make special file
/sbin/bcheckrc:

So, the "Can't make special file" issue is related to something else. We use an EMC SAN, so the part of the inittab file that runs before bcheckrc is the scsript to start EMC PowerPath. I took a look at the startup file for this and, sure enough, there is an entry that looks like this in the startup script....
'/sbin/insf -Cdisk > /dev/null 2>&1'

The problem is that there is no space after the -C switch. The line should read....
'/sbin/insf -C disk > /dev/null 2>&1'

and is why I am receiving this message.


However, thanks to all who replied with suggestions on the cause of the panic reboot.

[Mike Keys]

See above