SERVER BOOTING IN SINGLE USER MODE

[Andrew Luis Arruza]

What would cause an "N" class to keep booting in single user mode?
Any/all help greatly appreciated.
Andy

[Bruce Regittko_1 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

One thing that could cause this is a problem with the /etc/inittab file. Make sure that the first non-comment line is

init:3:initdefault:

to boot to run level 3. (Note the trailing :).

If this does not fix the problem, rename the /etc/inittab file and copy a new one into place:

mount /usr
mv /etc/inittab /etc/inittab.OLD
cp /usr/newconfig/etc/inittab /etc/inittab
reboot

Good luck,

--Bruce

[melvyn burnard]

A corrupt or missing /etc/passwd or/etc/group file will also FORCE the system to boot in single user mode.
You may also want to watch the console when the system boots as the boot string MAY be set to override the /etc/inittab entry with the -is option set.

[Donald Fisher]

If you added "exec ksh " to the .profile file for root, you will have to comment it out.

[S.Ober]

If the wrong shell for the root user is used the system will only boot in single user mode. Change in /etc/passwd the root shell to /sbin/sh and this shouldn't be a problem anymore.

[Andrew Luis Arruza]

The problem was in the /etc/passwd file.
Someone had changes to root shell to /usr/bin/ksh.
Thanks to all. Hope this helps someone else.