console is locked out...please help...desperate

[bo pritchard]

I'm unable to gain any sort of access to my console...when i came in this morning the console screen was littered with messages saying:
"sendmail queueup cannot create data temp file...file table overflow

crt 0: error couldn't open /usr/lib/dld.sl errno 000000023

INIT: Command is respawning too rapidly
Will try again in 5 minutes
Check for possible errors
id:cons /usr/sbin/getty console console

id: cons "/usr/sbin/getty console console"

i have no prompt to login or to type any commands....just a blank screen...i can type all day but when i enter it just returns to the next line down...i'm out of any command mode...

i can't telnet to it...what can i do to gain control enough to down it...

[Steven E. Protter]

If its a serial console:

turn it off

Hold down the d key.

Turn it on.

When it comes up, you should be back in command.

If its a web console. Turn it off and back on and then reconnect.

SEP

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Bo,

Man, I feel your pain. That's not pretty nor fun.
Since the console entry in inittab is bazook, AND you've overflowed NFILE, I think you're only hope is to find someone/some terminal somewhere that is already logged in & hopefully running something that can be stopped & then use it to su - root. Then VERY next thing to do is /sbin/init.d/sendmail stop & then comment out the console entry in inittab & do init -q. Immediately follow that by uncommenting console in inittab & again init -q
Probably next I'd look in the /var/spool/mqueue dir to see what's happening with sendmail before I restart it. May be someone/something flooded you with mail.
If that's the case you may not need to increase NFILE unless it's lower than it should be.
But bottom-line is if you *can't* gain access *somewhere* you'll have no choice but to get to the GSP & do an RS to force a reboot.

Good Luck,
Jeff

[bo pritchard]

it's serial...i did that
got a message that said:
"default configs used
press return to clear"

i pressed return and now it's sitting on a blank screen...still not in command mode

[bo pritchard]

help me out...what does
"get to the GSP & do an RS to force a reboot" mean

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi (again),

It means type ctrl-B on the console. This will give you the GSP login if this is an L,N, or rpXXXX. The default login/PW is blank, so a couple of returns are needed to get to the GSP> prompt. From there enter RS & hit return & the system should start rebooting.
But see my above post - you need to determine just why you overflowed the NFILE parameter. It may be sendmail - maybe not - but it's a suspect.

Rgds,
Jeff

[Shaikh Imran]

Hi,
Please Don't forget to mention
Machine Name : e.g. L,N,D,K etc..
HP-Unix O.S. : 10.20,11,11.x etc..,
In your further posts so that it will be easier for we people to give you inputs.

OK:
Once you get through the problem as Jef says
Also Please search for the sendmail patches and apply them.

Regards

[T G Manikandan]

The problem was due to the misconfigured kernel parameter nfile.

make sure you increase that parameter once the system is up.

number of open files has exceeded the kernel parameter limit.

nfile parameter is dependent on maxusers and nproc kernel parameters.

Make sure you have the appropriate values.

For more information on these parameters check
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/939/KCParms/KCparams.OverviewAll.html