INIT: Timeout reached - error in writing wtmp file

[Helen Herring]

Receiving subject error message on reboot. Just before subject message receive the following: /sbin/auto_parms:DHCP access is disabled (see /etc/auto_parms.log) We do have DHCP disabled. This just started a couple of months ago. First time HP support had me empty the wtmp file. This morning first reboot since last September 20 ,2001. That was first time to receive the error. I have to do a CNTRL/SHIFT/| to release boot hang. Anyone receive this or know what could be the cause?

[Patrick Wallek]

Well, here are somethings to check. The wtmp file is in /var/adm/wtmp. /etc/wtmp is linked to /var/adm/wtmp.

1) Permission on /var/adm/wtmp - shoud be -rw-rw-r-- and owner and group of adm.
2) Size of /var/adm/wtmp - It's not 2GB is it? /var is typically not largefile enabled. But wtmp shouldn't be anywhere near 2GB either.
3) Is the /var filesystem full? If so, you wouldn't be able to write any more into wtmp.

Here is my wtmp:

# ll /var/adm/wtmp
-rw-rw-r-- 1 adm adm 9122100 Nov 26 13:54 /var/adm/wtmp

[Patrick Wallek]

Here's a ll of wtmp from another system. I don't know why the permissions are different. I'm not having problems with either one though.

# ll /var/adm/wtmp
-rw------- 1 root sys 13846680 Nov 26 13:57 /var/adm/wtmp

Here's from yet another system (permissions match the first system):

# ll /var/adm/wtmp
-rw-rw-r-- 1 adm adm 73200 Nov 26 01:05 /var/adm/wtmp

[Helen Herring]

The wtmp looks like:
-rw-rw-r-- 1 adm adm 88080 Nov 26 13:40 /var/adm/wtmp

bdf shows only 65% of /var used.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi,

/etc/wtmp has permissions lrwxrwxrwt and is owned by root, group sys. /var/adm/wtmp has permissions -rw-rw-r-- and is owned by adm, group adm. /etc/wtmp is linked to /var/adm/wtmp. directory /etc has permissions dr-xr-xr-x, owned by bin, group bin.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Helen Herring]

The /etc/wtmp looks like:
lrw-rw-r-T owned by root group sys. I really don't think wtmp is the problem. The last command works fine.

[Frank Slootweg]

I could not find this error message, not in /sbin/init and not in /stand/vmunix. The "INIT: " part implies that it comes from /sbin/init (which contains this string (see strings(1))).

Can you please post:

- Your HP-UX release.

- The *exact* error message, i.e. with the exact upper/lower case, exact punctuation, space(s), etc..

- The messages directly before and after this error message.

Thanks.

[Steven Gillard_2]

Something else to check is your /sbin/init.d startup scripts. The bootup process will hang if one of them isn't written correctly. Each of these scripts must accept the 'start_msg', 'stop_msg', 'start' and 'stop' arguments.

The init process will call each script with the 'start_msg' argument, then proceed to call them with the 'start' argument as it moves up through the run levels. A script that does not handle the 'start_msg' argument and instead attempts to start some application will cause this type of boot-up problem. I have seen people make this mistake many times.

I would suggest examining any recently created / modified /sbin/init.d scripts for this type of problem. Look at the /sbin/init.d/template script for an example of how they should be written.

Cheers,
Steve

[Helen Herring]

HP-UX 11.11 running on a K260.
reboot system
during reboot receiving normal boot messages and then
/sbin/auto_parms:DHCP access is disabled (see /etc/auto_parms.log)
(system sits here for the longest time)
then receive
INIT: Timeout reached - Error in writing to wtmp file
then system hangs
only way to break out of hang is to CNTRL/SHIFT/|.