Hi, I have a HP UX C8000 box , have installed 11.11i from 4 x cds numerous times to try to get a functioning Network or to try and get rid of this error on start up, after new install and 1st startup I get an error
"The desktop messaging system could not be started"
and then advice about pressing ok to return to login and to login in a failsafe session and then check to see /etc/hosts that the network is properly configured. I enter failsafe login and run SAM and configure network and checked that Mozilla can access internet , it can, (although it keeps crashing and exits , it still can load webpages ok before crashing) but I cannot , for the life of me , work out how to configure desktop messaging system so that I can login to a normal (non failsafe) session, on searching for a solution
I found advice to try cp nsswitch.files nsswitch.conf I do this, and it fixes the error and I don't get the error on logging in BUT I then cannot access the internet , I can't work out how to remove this error AND retain internet access, any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanx
If you have /etc/resolve.conf then edit /etc/nsswitch.conf and append dns to the hosts: files .
Then for a host resolution the system will first consider the file /etc/hosts then ask the DNS server in /etc/resolve.conf.
have done a fresh install to clear all things I've changed and reset all defaults, back to having mozilla working ok to surf net, but the /etc/resolve.conf and /etc/nsswitch.conf files have [new file] displayed when I try to edit them. Desktop messaging system error still there and does not allow me to do anything one the CDE desktop appears ( has a black circle with a line through it when I move onto anything to adjust or change window size etc or open anything)
anyone have any advice? have spent hours and hours trying to get this sorted, just can't seem to get the system to a point where I can access the internet with a browser, log in (apart from failsafe mode) to the desktop without the desktop messaging system error coming up and have now noticed I can't use swinstall either, almost ready to give up on this system , even after doing multiple fresh installs and trying all types of settings and dns settings and network settings it still refuses to be a usable system, surely after you do a fresh os install you must be able to get to the desktop? no? without modifying settings? at a point where I don't know what to do next or check next, every piece of advice i find seems to be totally different and still does not fix the fault and sometimes makes it worse and sometimes refers to modifying files that i don't even have on this system, am i doing something fundamentally wrong with network settings? are there things you need to set up before the system is bootable , apart from the network settings entered during installation process? has anyone here installed hp ux 11.11 v1 on a C8000 and got it to work "out of the box", what settings did you use for networks ?
Well we have no idea what you modified, what you installed or configured, so it will be very difficult to help you...
When in trouble, you should always try to get a sane minimalist system up, then add till an issue appears and correct it before to proceed...
In your case I dont if you are talking of graphics or GUI issue (X11) or network, evenmore if the system works as a standalone...
When you modified config files what did you use to edit?
When the system boots, have you been looking at the display, is all init stuff successful?
If you have set DHCP, try to give your box a fix address and correctly give netmask...
Thanks for your reply
ok have just finished installing os on my other C8000, minimal hardware, DID NOT select DCHP option for network, manually entered ip address for machine as 192.168.1.18, gateway as 192.168.1.1 which is the value I use for the ethernet to wifi adapter that I have set up previously to connect to wifi on ethernet hardware I own ( this is the value I use on my SGI Octane when using this adaptor) it boots into the CDE Desktop and I can operate everything fine (prev. if I select DCHP , network settings get assigned and I get an error about desktop messaging system and I cannot log in in anything but failsafe mode) however if I start up mozilla , it cannot find any pages, keeps saying good web address cannot be found , please check and try again. on the other computer , after fiddling with network settings, I could get mozilla to load pages BUT it would then come up with desktop messaging system error and I would have to log back in in failsafe mode and could run mozilla ok but obviously could not get to a standard CDE session. In summary CAN EITHER HAVE A STANDARD CDE LOGIN WITH NO ERROR ABOUT MESSAGING SYSTEM BUT NO INTERNET RUNNING MOZILLA.............OR .............. ONLY A FAILSAFE LOGIN BECAUSE OF DESKTOP MESSAGING ERROR HOWEVER MOZILLA DOES INFACT WORK. BUT........... NOT BOTH WORKING AT SAME TIME.
thanks for your reply, just to check I'm doing it right... to check for this file... cd /etc then ls lots of files but nothing with name resolv.conf or anything starting with resol........ . think I have previously seen this file on a previous try, have a new install running now , did not select DCHP , I entered ip address manually, this allows the system to enter CDE desktop without stopping at desktop messaging system error and now the swinstall system works where it didn't before, BUT no internet access , this is the only thing that is not working at the moment
HP-UX is very sensible on netmask setting which you have not said anything...
next, the configuration of the network port HAS TO MATCH with the port of your switch or you are also in trouble...
FORGET USING MOZILLA TILL YOU HAVE SOLVE YOUR NETWORK ISSUE otherwise you take the risk of misconfiguring something that will generate unsolvable issues, and your are to restart the installation again from scratch, discipline and method is VERY important to achieve a wealthy install...
You still have not said with what you edit your system files... HP-UX can be corrupted if you use anythng else than vi!
You havent answered what were the init like, is all that is started successful?
How did you configure your network (using what tool?), thats a few years I have not touched an HP but remember if my memory serves me a tool called setparms or something of the sort, if I told you to avoid DHCP there was a reason:
IF YOU HAVE NOT CONFIGURED CORRECTLY YOU NETWORK BEFORE, YOU HAVE A SYSTEM THAT WILL ALMOST NEVER WORK UNLESS YOU KNOW HP-UX IF YOU HAPPEN TO TOUCH DHCP...
Worse would be to plug the system to a network when installing letting the system find out by himself, same result if you are on a badly configured network, unless you know well HP-UX you can restart you install and dont do the same mistake again
Why?
Because you machine will ask the network who he is, and what will the network answer?
If you are lucky the netwrk replies "unknown" and your box will continue the confuguration giving unknown as hostname, then what will be the IP when asking for UNKNOWN ?... I let you guess how your lan0 is configured...
So stop playing around trying to get mozilla display, and solve the mess you put yourself in.
Lesson one:
Boot in single user (NO GUI then, yes its tough...) then get your box to get in init 2
in that state you have no internet advanced stuff (no NFS etc...) no X1 running, but you have lan0 or lan1 configured..
Now you are on tes terminal, try to ping your gateway, does it reply?
can you ping yourself?
Did you set correctly your netmask, do the speed of ports lan match?
try an nslookup command like nslookup unix.com what output do you get?
Lesson 2
look at the man pages how to set DHCP if that is what you want, or how to configure as post #7 suggest: 2 files /etc/resolv.conf /etc/nsswitch.conf
A mistake here and you have nslookup not working...
If all you can think of using ping and nslookup gives you satisfaction
pass to init 3
or reboot...
now in GUI try mozilla if it doesnt work come back to init 2, go and look at /sbin/rc3.d and look what is launched and check all the configuration files those application use and correct the faulty then go and look at what mozilla launches, I remember it fires a shell that read also files, look what is in the script and comment out what you suspect faulty...
Even if it years since my last install of HP-UX I have more than 20 years experience with and can assure you that a bad start you pay all the life of the box... and a well installed at a begining box will never fail till you replace it I stopped last year a 10.20 I installed in 1998 and a 11.11 I installed in 2001 but had boxes installed by others like you wanting such soft to run or did not pay attention to some netwrk issues that always had something not working right at a moment like swinstall or Ignite or the mirroring etc...
ok set up network using final stage of os install , all text based, answered no to DHCP set up manually, ip address entered 192.168.1.18, gateway 192.168.1.1 subnet mask 255.255.255.0
named system c80001
didnt enter any NIS settings or any other network settings
this allows boot to CDE desktop without Desktop messaging error
ok to start your questions
boot to command line (?)
ping 192.168.1.1 to ping gateway
got good result
ping 192.168.1.18 to ping my system
got good result
assume subnet mask at 255.255.255.0 is ok, checked in router manual settings etc
do the speed of lan ports match (????)
HP-UX nslookup is quite special; it shows the host lookup order.
If there isn't yet a /etc/nsswitch.conf then create one with a dns entry; the following command can do it
sed '/^hosts/ s/files.*/files dns/' /etc/nsswitch.files >/etc/nsswitch.conf
If the ports of your router are 100MB full duplex it should be the same HP-UX side, avoid auto unless you have GB...
you can checkout with lanadmin command
Did you use setparms to configure your IP etc...?
Ping is not enough to say all is working, have you another host in your network you can connect to from your HP-UX if so, connect to th remote and try to transfer a big file, if ttransparent then it seems to work if dead slow then you have a network conf mismatch, it must be solved before trying internet... the most plausible is port mismatch like your HP-UX is 10 halfduplex and your router is 100 full, or both are 100 but failed in auto and set to half (HP-UX side ).
Your
Using /etc/hosts on: c80001
looking up FILES
*** no address information available for "unix.com"
shows probably your resolv.conf is not set or is not properly set
It needs a DNS server...
Give it the address of your router and see if it works, since I have never trying to configure hosts privately, I dont know what you should put for a domain name
I would try home or nothing and put a line with:
preferred server 192.168.1.1
I let you search for that
for the nsswitch.conf file, for the line host you can try something like
host file DNS
but try to look for samples because I am at home for another week at least in bed and have no access to my docs... and with my medication I doubt having memory at optimum...
Courage and good luck
sed '/^hosts/ s/files.*/files dns/' /etc/nsswitch.files >/etc/nsswitch.conf
tried this and worked without errors but still the same error "no address info available.......
tried lanadmin and got gigabit ethernet settings all ok i.e says connected at 1000000 an connection is up
have set up network settings using questions at end of operating install , entered gateway address, ip address for system etc , if I select DCHP setup I get the error situation where it displays
desktop messaging system cannot start etc and cannot log in etc, if i then login failsafe i then can run mozilla and get a connection ok BUT cannot login to desktop for normal CDE session
will try manually edit resolv.conf with your suggestions and see what happns, thanx for your input
---------- Post updated at 04:25 PM ---------- Previous update was at 03:34 PM ----------
UPDATE
I have Live internet and able to log in to full CDE session with NO desktop messaging system error used SAM default domain as - home , other domains to search 192.168.1.1
then Name servers as 203.12.160.35 ,203.12.160.36, and 203.12.160.37 which I found from my isp website for their DNS name servers... WHAT A RELEIF........ I don't know what actually fixed it as I'm pretty sure have tried these settings before , maybe was one of the commands suggested in last few posts, am going to do a fresh install when a new HDD arrives and will re-do everything I did this time to get it running, finally wish to thank all people who contributed to suggestions to fix my problem... I have spent a week trying to sort this out and , thank goodness , have finally fixed it....