login process takes long time

[Fernando Acevedo]

After disabling automounter in my K370 HP-UX 10.20 server, and reboot the system, the login process takes long time. I disabled the automonter to fix a probleam with NFS in the mount-point /net, now the problem with /net was solved but the login takes long time.

I really apresiate any help.

[Steven E. Protter]

A common problem causing long login is slow DNS response.

Lets say the servers hostname is:
dataserver

and its ip address is:
192.168.0.40

Try connecting as dataserver
then by IP address.

if the response time is noticably different, then look at the DNS servers. You may be choosing the wrong ones for your users, or they may need patching and update.

I'm not familiar with your original issue, can you provide a link to the itrc thread?

SEP

[doug mielke]

try a bdf to see if it's also slow. Since you were working with NFS, if there is a NFS related action in a profile, it could be slowing the login.

[Fernando Acevedo]

I tried the login using the IP and the situation is the same, even doing the login from the console the time is the same I mean very slow.

in the .profile file I don't have any reference to a any NFS directory, should I look in other files?.

the thread I look to fix my NFS problem was http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=501693

[Stuart Abramson]

does your login reference any NFS-mounted filesystems? Without the automounter he can't find them.

Were your home directories automounted?

Does your HISTORY file go in /home//username?

Check for this and change them all to local file systems.

export HISTORY=/tmp/.history.$LOGNAME.$$

[Fernando Acevedo]

The bdf works very fast.

My login doesn't have any reference to NFS-mounted, well I am only checking the .profile file, should I check another file to find out that?

My hoem directories were propertly automonted.

The history files are into /home directory in this way /home/

[Mark Greene_1]

Does mount -p hang or return right away? Also, what is in your /etc/nsswitch.conf?

mark

[Stuart Abramson]

Humor me and put:

export HISTORY=/tmp/.history.$LOGNAME.$$

in your .profile

[Stuart Abramson]

That should be:

export HISTFILE=/tmp/.history.$LOGNAME.$$

Sorry.

[Fernando Acevedo]

Mark:
the mount -p respond very fast.
I dont have any /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

Stuart:
I put the line you suggest me in my .profile file, what should I expect?.

Acctually using telnet takes several seconds also to promptme login:, then takes other several seconds to login into the system, before this process took only 1 or 2 seconds.

[doug mielke]

if you don't have an nsswitch file, check to see if you have /etc/resolv.conf.

also try an nslookup servername where the server name is the name of the NFS source to see if it responds quckly with the correct address. (if no resove.conf file it should only be looking in /etc/hosts)

also another profile to look at is
/etc/profile
a profile for all users.

[Mark Greene_1]

if you have neitehr resolv.conf nor nsswitch.conf, that your problem is DNS related. Telnet will do reverse look-ups and there's no way to turn this off. You can verify this easily enough by putting the host name and IP address of your PC into the host file on the Unix system and then logging out and back in again and see if it makes a difference.

mark

[Fernando Acevedo]

doing a nslookup
*** Can't find server name for address xx.xx.x.xxx: Non-existent domain (address of the DNS windows server)
*** Default servers are not available

Using /etc/hosts on:

looking up FILES
Name:
Address: xx.xx.x.xxx (address of the hostname)

also this commands takes several seconds, in other server working fine this commands run inmediatly.

[Fernando Acevedo]

I tried to add my workstation IP address into the hosts file but doesn't work. Remember, the login also takes several seconds from the console.

[Fernando Acevedo]

more info:

doing ping to any ip address from the server having problems takes several seconds to show the first line, after the first line appears the time respond in ms is fine.

doing ping to the ip address of the server having problems from any other server or workstatios responds inmediatly.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

If ping by IP address is behaving like this, it sounds like fundamental network problems -- most likely speedy/duplex mismatches on your host NIC and its corresponding port on the switch. You could also have routing problems.

Because lanadmin on 10.20 may lack features of later versions --- especially if you are not fully patched, I suggest that you ftp a 10MB (or so) file in both directions and determine if the transfer speed seems reasonable. In not, you have fundamental network setting mismatches (possibly hard-set on one end and auto-negotiate on the other). Surprising these mismatches will almost work and may not at all be evident in a telnet session but will kill FTP transfers (or NFS). I suspect that this was what started all your problems and the automounter was a symptom rather than a problem.

[Bill Hassell]

The problem is in your resolv.conf file. You said:

doing a nslookup
*** Can't find server name for address xx.xx.x.xxx: Non-existent domain (address of the DNS windows server)
*** Default servers are not available


--This is very important. The DNS server you are trying to use doesn't know it's own name. That is a common but very bad mistake in setting up a DNS server. DNS is a major security on a network and nslookup is trying to validate that the DNS server is valid.



Using /etc/hosts on:

looking up FILES
Name:
Address: xx.xx.x.xxx (address of the hostname)


--Because of the above failure, DNS is disabled and only /etc/hosts is used.


also this commands takes several seconds, in other server working fine this commands run inmediatly

--This is the source of your long login delays. During login, a check is being made to validate the IP address with the DNS server. The server(s) are not responding or are misconfigured, thus the long delays.

Start by verifying *every* DNS server listed in /etc/resolv.conf. Do this by using nslookup with an extra parameter, namely, the server to use:

nslookup
nslookup
nslookup

Until nslookup can reach each of the DNS servers, you will experience long delays. Either the IP address is wrong, the DNS server is not reachable (routing errors) or the server is refusing to talk to your machine.

[Fernando Acevedo]

Hi Bill:
I am not sure if my network administrator configure propertly the DNS for this server, he just added that configuration 1 month ago, the fact is that the login process worked fast before I change the automounting NFS to off. I don't know why, and I don't know if this change is related with the login problem.

I tried the command you suggest me and this was the result:

nslookup hostname xx.xx.x.xxx
Specified server is not available.
The configured name services and switch policy will be used.
*** Can't find server name for address xx.xx.x.xxx (address of the dns server): Non-existent domain
*** Default servers are not available
Using /etc/hosts on: hostname

Should I deactivate the DNS as was before?

[Bill Hassell]

The DNS server needs to be fixed. For now, just delete the resolv.conf file and put the hostnames and IP-addresses you need into /etc/hosts. Everything will run at normal speeds now.

[Fernando Acevedo]

Sorry Bill: I did that and doesn't work.

I deleted the resolv.conf file, and the IP adresses already exists in the hosts file, I try the login process again and takes the same several seconds.

[Patrick Wallek]

At what point in the login is the delay? Does it take a long tiem to get the login prompt? Or is the delay after you enter the password and it takes a long time to get the unix prompt?

How are your home-directories mounted? Are you getting to your home directory?

More information about where exactly the delay is would be helpful.

[Fernando Acevedo]

Hi Patrick:

It takes a long time to get the login prompt and after I enter the password also it takes a long time to get the unix prompt. In the console the difference is that the login prompt is already waiting in the screen so in the console the delay only happends after to enter the password.

my home-directories are local, and yes I am getting my home directories.

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

could it be that there is NFS-related stuff in $PATH ?
You really can fall into serious performance troubles when automount is not working in this case...

mfG Peter

[Fernando Acevedo]

Hi Peter, in my $PATH only have local file systems.

[Mark Greene_1]

The NFS think is probably incidental and can be ignored. Do a traceroute from the HP system back to your PC and see how many hops. Then take that output to your network admin and find out what changed on the network that's between the HP and your PC.

mark