> totally lame but here goes my problem: on an old netbsd 1.4.2 
> machine i changed the ifaliases file. now the machine only hangs at
> boot time while setting the first alias.

You know that you can kill processes during boottime with ^C ?

Alternatively you can boot into singleuser-mode by
pressing any other key than enter before the kernel boots
and then enter "boot -s" at the appearing prompt.
Hint: to edit files with vi in singleuser set the terminal
type to "vt100" with "export TERM=vt100" and (re-)mounting the
"/" and "/usr" filesystems.


snafu
Martin
-- 
victory for hemp!