who -r command echoes no data, just prompt

[Kristopher March]

HP-UX B.11.00 C 9000/800

When I type in who -r it doesn't tell me the run level, just returns with the prompt.
Any help/insite would be greatly appreciated.

[harry d brown jr]

Kristopher,

Is your system running? Just kidding. How about the output of any other command, like just regular who??

Also, have you checked the patches?

live free or die
harry

[Sanjay_6]

Hi,

The problem could be with your /etc/utmp file. Do a init 3 and then run the who command once again and try,

init 3
who -r

Hope this helps.

regds

[S.K. Chan]

Check if you got "-r" file accidently created, because if you have that and try to run "who -r" it'll just give you back the prompt. Remove the file and you'll be fine.

# rm ./-r

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Kristopher,

another possible solution would be an alias set to the "who -r"- command which delivers this silly output. You can find out by the command "alias" which shows a list of all defined aliases. Or is your computer running Linux, then the command would be "runlevel"...
:-)

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Jon Mattatall]

Hmmmm...

Try entering who -r, and when you get the prompt back enter
"echo $?". This gives you back the return code for the last command.
If it returns "0", the who command was successful.
Anything else (1,127,etc.) is a failure, not found, and so on.
Check /usr/bin/who for permissions as well, but that's a stab in the dark....

HTH

Jon

[Kristopher March]

$ alias
autoload='typeset -fu'
command='command '
functions='typeset -f'
grep=/usr/bin/grep
history='fc -l'
integer='typeset -i'
local=typeset
ls=/usr/bin/ls
nohup='nohup '
r='fc -e -'
stop='kill -STOP'
suspend='kill -STOP $$'
type='whence -v'
who=/usr/bin/who

Here is the output of my alias command. I'm wondering about the r= 'fc -e -'(I don't know what it means)
Also, what's the result of running init 3 on a production server running several Oracle databases. Will it affect anything?
who -r is the only command that doesn't work. ie, who -R, who works

[Mark Greene_1]

the "r" alias exists on my system, and who -r works fine, so it is not that.

does the file /tmp/utmp exist on your system? what about /var/adm/wtmp? the info show in who -r is stored in one of these files, and if it is missing, then there is nothing to display.

HTH
mark

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Kristopher,

"fc -e" trys to open your history file and shows you the contents. So you don't have to wonder about that. In the file /etc/inittab there is an entry ( normally the first line ) with the "initdefault", which is by default "3". This field is read by init to find out the default runlevel. The system runs up to the defined runlevel. Normally Oracle databases are started also in runlevel 3. You can find out this by having a look into the /sbin/rc3.d- directory with ls -l. The output shows you some links of start- and stop- scripts. If any changes for oracle databases are made, you should see a script, beginning with S (startscript) or K (killscript), a pass number after that and the name of the service to be started or stopped. So you can find out what will be happen!

One more thing you could try is to copy a who- command from another computer (same HP-UX-version! ) to your computer and try it again.

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Kristopher March]

converted /var/adm/wtmp to ascii and did a more on it. Looks like user loggin info. and nothing else.

Also, looked at /var/adm/utmp and on the second line it has run-level 4.

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Kristopher,

runlevel 4 was a previous runlevel for systems who worked with HP VUE. At the time now the runlevel 4 is no longer defined in a HP-UX system. You could take a look into the rc4.d- directory for the start- and stop-scripts if your oracle- databases are posted there. If not, you should be able to run a init 3 without any danger. Please post here, if your command shows the normal output then. If not, the /var/adm/wtmp and utmp-file seem to be corrupted.

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Kristopher March]

rd4.d directory is empty. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I am still looking into these /var/adm/wtmp and /etc/utmp files. Is there an easy way to re-create them without doing any harm to the system?
Thank you ALL for your time.

[Helen French]

Hi Kris,

Check this out, it will defenitely help you:

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=0a60f5301749b6fd0b/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000058669431

HTH,
Shiju

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Kristopher,

it seems like there is a solution to repair the files:

i found two commands which you can use-

/usr/sbin/acct/fwtmp ( -ic )
/usr/sbin/acct/wtmpfix ( files )

the first command translates the entrys to ASCII which makes it easier to find errors. The second one is able to translate ASCII input into binary output. Please read the manpages for those commands. If this doesn't help you should pray you have a support contract, because in ITO there exists also a tool to repair these files. You should do a call then...

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Kristopher,

i forgot to tell you to read the manpage for utmp/wtmp to understand the entries in those files. A friend of mine just told me, that the previously mentioned ITO- command would be the best way...


Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Kristopher March]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong here. Please look at the attached file. I was trying the C code as Shiju suggested I try.
I'm not familiar with ITO command?

Will look into man pages for fwtmp and wtmpfix.

Thanks. :)