Can not login to CDE -- only Fail Safe Session permitted

Hi,
I am a hobbyist with a very old machine I have been trying to get up and running. I have an HP 9000/C240 with 1G of RAM and 3-8.5G HD. It is configured with 1G SWAP/DUMP. Currently only one drive is in use via LVM. I have not gotten around to creating more volumes just yet.

It is running HP-UX B.10.20A 900/782 two user license
This is a new install, and I am open to installing again. The problem I have is that when I try to login as root into CDE a core dump is produced after splashing the copyright information and the system immediately logs me back out. I can login to Fail Safe Session and run SAM just fine.

The system is configured on a network, and when it boots nothing is failing. When I login Fail Safe mode I can ping addresses on the Internet just fine.
Previously I had installed the OS with no networking. When I had done this I could login to CDE just fine using a wide number of accounts and shells.
I noticed that when I login as root using the Fail Safe Session, who reports that root is logged in twice, once as console and once as PTS/0 the console session is just idle.

I have created other accounts using SAM and then attempted to login to one of them, in all cases I have to use a Fail Safe Session.
I am interested in hearing thoughts regarding what can cause the system to produce the core file and then prevent me from logging in. Could it be the wrong terminal type? I am not sure how to check but I have an HP A4331D monitor on the machine.

I am very new to UNIX administration so please be specific when you ask me what the log files say.

Thank you in Advance,

Respectfully,

Dirk

Greetings,
No HPUX gurus out there today? I cant help you much with workstations since I dont know much about them except that I cant remember if at the time of my 712 and 715 if you could be root in graphical... (hpux 9.05 and 9.07) I have the 10.20 CDs but never found the time to upgrade... at the time I had a terminal connected as console (reason of my doubts...) What I remember after is that if you dont open a console somewhere it displays on your current screen so you had to open a window that gets the console output:

xterm -C -T console &

I remember HP saying it can be tricky in setting the correct display (vertical/horizontal frequencies...). Does it display at all? I mean do you get the graphical CDE login prompt? (then when you connect it fails.?...)

Thanks for the reply,

Yes I get the graphical CDE login prompt.

Dirk

hum...
And it was working fine before you added network?

Yes that is correct.

Dirk

How did you define hostname?
(If using SAM, I think there was a bug in 10.20...)
What does

file core

display?

File core revealed the following:
Core: core file from �dtsession' received SIGSEGV
I defined the hostname during setup.

I found some other useful information in my .dtprofile located under /home/dirk
The revision on the .dtprofile file is 1.7 and in short it says that if you have the issue that I originally described then check both /home/dirk/.dt/errorlog and /home/dirk/.dt/startlog for errors.

The contents of /home/dirk/.dt/errorlog are as follows:
.... (date and time)
Workspace manager I/O error on display :: :0.0
The contents of /home/dirk/.dt/startlog are as follows:
...
...
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown)

On a side note when I originally gave my machine a host name I used an upper case letter to begin the host name. When I later did an �/sbin/setparms hostname' that utility advised not to use upper case letters in host names so I changed my hostname to all lower case. I am still having problems.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Dirk

Its not picking up your host name properly:
start by looking at your /etc/hosts file:
be sure you have:

10.X.X.Y       my_host  #  your host name
127.0.0.1       localhost       loopback

Go into single user and set host and network with set_parms,
Then, edit /etc/nsswitch.conf:
and correct like:

passwd:       files
group:        files
hosts:        files [NOTFOUND=continue] dns

Then check in /etc/rc.config.d/netconf thefirst uncommented lines are:

HOSTNAME="your_hostname"
OPERATING_SYSTEM=HP-UX
LOOPBACK_ADDRESS=127.0.0.1

This file contains also your lan interface config, so you can also give a check...

After, there is /var/dt/Xerrors file you could look at
And also run the script dr_dt in /usr/contrib/bin/X11 to see what it has to say about your configuration...

Hi,
Thanks for the assistance with my issue. You were correct is saying that there was a problem with my host name, and it preventing me from logging into the system. I followed along with what you had suggested. I found out that the problem with the host name may have been due to the fact that it is not registered with my Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Basically what I want to use this machine for is an Internet client/ scripting/learning tool. I have a copy of Internet Explorer 5.0 for UNIX that I plan on installing on this system. Because of this I had plugged the HP-UX machine into the Internet thinking that I could configure DNS properly. My mistake....

I have a router from my ISP then I have a broadband router behind that so that I have a private network, which my HP-UX machine resides in.

Following is what I have done to the system to get it to the point that I can login again:

  1. Login to fail safe session
  2. Went into SAM
  3. Went into Networking and Communications
  4. Went into DNS (BIND)
  5. Went into resolver
  6. Deleted DNS Name Server for my ISP ( my host name was not registered with the ISP )

I am now able to login normally into CDE and ping my localhost, hostname, and default gateway, but of course cannot resolve names on the Internet.

.....

I now need to add a couple of DNS entries for my ISP so that my HP-UX box can resolve names and I am not sure how to do that. Can you provide any suggestions? I have tried a number of things including going back into DNS and adding entries. After I click apply I can ping unix.com and other Internet sites just fine until the next login. I then have to use a failsafe session and delete the DNS entries I just added, otherwise I cannot login again without the original issue arising.

Respectfully,

Dirk

Sorry for the delay (vacation, then catching up work again...).

The best bet is your case would be to use a PC with a Knoppix Live CD (or DVD...) on the same net as your HP box, let it sort out your network stuff and configure itself, test how it accesses internet and if all works, then look how it was done: copy the information found in nsswitch.conf resolv.conf into your HP box and test...
There is no reason if a liveCD can solve your issue that you cannot do the same...

Hello,

I resolved this issue a few days ago before I read your post. Your correct the machine was not picking up the host name properly. My memory is not so good and I am just a hobbiest again this is HP UX 10.2 for those reading along.

To the best of my memory what I did to resolve this was to login using fail safe mode, go into SAM then went into DNS (BIND) and added a couple of DNS entries used by my ISP. I also had to add an internal domain name. I just made something up for that.

If I am not mistaken in the portion of SAM that makes adding DNS entries possible I right clicked. Upon doing so a menu appeared that I had not seen before. This menu allowed me to configure when the host file was to be used. The way it was configured DNS was set to be used first and then if DNS failed the machine was set to do nothing. I checked a check box which told it to use the host file after DNS failed and it resolved the issue I had.

My host file has my host name, local host, and default gateway only.

Sorry I am such a novice.

I am now able to surf the Internet using IE5 on this vintage machine (Visualize C240) Of course most sites require a newer browser with java support, I did download java for IE5 for Unix it is a depot file? Have not got around to installing it yet.

Anyway I can login and logout just fine now, no core file is produced and I don't have to login using fail safe mode any longer.

Dirk