man not working for hpux11i v2

[dattu_1]

Hi guys,
Man is not working....
I am getting ;
Reformatting entry wait sh:btl not found
sh:neqn not found
sh:col not found
sh:nroff not found

Plzzzzzzzzz help as it is must.............

[IT_2007]

Is MANPATH included in your profile? type echo $MANPATH and see what it shows.

[dattu_1]

Hi srini,
MANPATH is present in my /etc/profile.......
is theres any patch which is to be installed.......?? for hpux 11i v2......rx4640 server......

[IT_2007]

would you please give more information about your system like hardware, OS and also check for any unusual messages in /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

[inventsekar_1 · Accepted solution]

1.)how MANPATH appears in /etc/profile?

is it like this:
MANPATH=/usr/share/man:/usr/contrib/man:/usr/local/man

2. do a "whereis" for any command?
#whereis ls
ls: /sbin/ls /usr/bin/ls /usr/share/man/man1.Z/ls.1

3. for space problems, there may be man pages not installed in your system.

4.sometime, you may not given permissions to use man pages.

5. is man page not available for all the commands or any particular command? for example users when install their own applications the path of man pages for the new applications should be included in the MANPATH

[inventsekar_1]

Hi dattu,
if u want a quick solution,

In this link, man pages for all the hpux versions in html and pdf forms available.

http://docs.hp.com/en/hpuxman_pages.html

[Patrick Wallek]

The problem is NOT with the man pages themselves and is probably not with MANPATH. The problem actually appears to be with your PATH variable. My guess is that /usr/bin is not in your path.

The key is the 'sh: col not found' and other similar messages. These commands reside in /usr/bin/. If /usr/bin/isn't in your path, then man won't work.

Try this:

# echo $PATH

examine the output for /usr/bin. If it is not there do this:

# export PATH=/usr/bin:${PATH}

Now try using the man pages again.

[inventsekar_1]

yes. if man pages not available, then u will get "No manual entry for"
try
# man tsconvert
No manual entry for tsconvert.

and Patrick,
"These commands reside in /usr/bin/. If /usr/bin/ isn't in your path, then man won't work"

man pages reside in /usr/share/ and commands reside in /usr/bin/ (not all)
now, if /usr/bin is not in PATH, we will get command not found error.
if /usr/bin is included in PATH and /usr/share is not included in PATH, man pages will be available?

[Patrick Wallek]

The commands I am talking about that reside in /usr/bin are nroff, col, neqn, etc. Those commands are used to format the man pages when you do 'man '.

If you notice the errors given:

Reformatting entry wait
sh:btl not found
sh:neqn not found
sh:col not found
sh:nroff not found

It is not saying anything about the man pages themselves not being available. It is saying 'btl not found', etc. That means it can't find the commands it needs to format the man pages.

/usr/share doesn't have to be in your path for 'man' to work. It needs to be in your MANPATH though. /usr/bin/ should be in everyones PATH.

[inventsekar_1]

Yes. understood clearly. thanks Patrick.
so dattu,
# export PATH=/usr/bin:${PATH}
and update us.

[dattu_1]

Hi guys,
Thanks for ur responses........But /usr/bin,/usr/sbin is already mentioned in PATH variable.........Any patch is to be installed for man page........

[inventsekar_1]

dattu, some more information is needed.

like,
1. for which command, u r not able to view man pages? is all the commands? or any particular commands?
2. no need of any patch for man pages to function(i think).
3. copy the PATH and MANPATH values
4. ur home directory permissions

[dattu_1]

Hi sekar,
i am not able to view any of the command's man page........already entered man path i.e. PATH ..and MANPATH variables in my etc/profile file..........

[Bill Hassell]

Make sure that the command you are running is /usr/bin/man. Do this with the type command:

type man

It may have been aliased to some other comand or script. Override the current definition of man by unalias man or type the full path: /usr/bin/man cut

[Kirby A. Joss]

I think there is a disconnect here...

Patrick referred to /usr/bin (no "s"), and dattu replied that /usr/sbin was in his PATH. These are obviously two different directories.

dattu, please check again. You will need /usr/sbin for sysadmin commands, but /usr/bin is also necessary for normal commands for any user.

[inventsekar_1]

joss,
dattu told,
/* " Thanks for ur responses........But /usr/bin,/usr/sbin is already mentioned in PATH variable.........Any patch is to be installed for man page........" */

so, from that, both /usr/sbin and /usr/bin are there in PATH.

As Bill told, check whether alias is there for "man":
"alias" (without arguemnts) will give you all the alias defined in the system.

Dattu,
echo $PATH;echo $MANPATH; alias;
do this and copy paste the result here.

[dattu_1]

Hi sekar and guys,
Sorry for the delay.....
But the o/p requested cant be pasted right here....since the server is at remote location..and no telnet login possible right now...But after logging into console i checked and verified that /usr/bin is included in PATH and MANPATH env variable..and reg alias no alias is set for man........Now what is to be done???

[RAC_1]

What is the exact command that you use?
Does man -k pwd work?

[Bill Hassell]

> ..But after logging into console i checked and verified that /usr/bin is included in PATH and MANPATH env variable..and reg alias no alias is set for man........Now what is to be done???

Please post the results of:

echo $PATH
echo $MANPATH
type man
alias

Now you mentioned above that /usr/bin is in $MANPATH. That is incorrect. The MANPATH variable must point to man directories. DO NOT make MANPATH=$PATH as nothing will show up. Your MANPATH should start with something like this:

/usr/share/man/%L:/usr/share/man:/usr/contrib/man/%L:/usr/contrib/man:/usr/local/man/%L:/usr/local/man:

Just to bypass the MANPATH variable completely, try these 2 commands:

unset MANPATH
man -M /usr/share/man cut

This will verify that the man command can search a specific directory without using MANPATH.

Also, in your original post, the first error shows: sh:btl not found
btl is not an HP-UX command so it is not clear at all what the man command is doing.

[dattu_1]

Ok Bill,
I will try out your suggestion and let u know..Sorry for delay caused but it is unavoidable...Thanks to all of you guys for being patient with me.....

[dattu_1]

Hi Bill,
I tried ur suggestion...but no success.....Also bill its tbl and not btl extremely sorry for that....

Anyway then i decided to check whether i have those 4 binaries in my /usr/bin to run man command....
1] neqn
2] nroff
3] tbl
4] col and to my horror they were not there...so i just copied those from hpux 11i v1 machine into this machine....which is hpux 11i v2...

And now my man is working..but not for all commands..For some commands i am getting ;
man ls
Reformatting entry ..Wait
Aborted(sorry)

Thanks guys to all of you,
Points given to all of you...

[Patrick Wallek]

If those were not on your machine, then I would have some serious concerns about what else may not be on your machine.

Those are basic hp-ux binaries and should be on every machine.

Have you ever taken an ignite make_tape_recovery or make_net recovery backup of this machine? If so, check it and see if those files exist on the backup. I would then seriously think about restoring your VG00 from that backup.

[dattu_1]

Hi Patrick,
Its not a new machine....we have actually borrowed it from from one hp vendor....and from that day itself man was not working...so initially it was used as test server by some other team might be they have done some mischief....I would certainly pay heed to your suggestion to check whatever binaries are not there....
Since this is an hpux 11i v2 machine and we are restoring bin form hpux 11i v1 machine...
What else problem could i face...???

[Bill Hassell]

Arrrrggghhhh! 11i V1 and 11i V2 are very, very different. Now it is possible that some of the executables might be backward compatible, but in /usr/bin?? I would not trust such a system at all. By the way, you do know that there is no directory called /bin or /lib on HP-UX, right? These directories (and many others) have not existed for more than 10 years. The /bin entry is a temporary symbolic link called a transition link and all modern SysV Unix systems do not have a /bin directory. It will not be there in the future.

This OS may be slightly damaged or it is on the verge of complete instability -- there is no way to tell. I would not trust it even as a test machine until it is reinstalled! Even as a test machine, the results may not be meaningful. Whenever I inherit a machine with basic problems, I save off whatever files (non-OS) that might be useful and then replace (install) everything on the vg00 disks.