On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Paul Treadwell wrote:

> >/etc/dev ??? You should have a /dev, but that's it.
> 
> I can't find the text I got the instructions from (it was some netBSD file,
> but PC and oldish), but I may well have made a mistake.
> I know when I first tried MAKEDEV tty, I got "Command not found" so I
> thought if I gave the path to where I'd seen MAKEDEV it might run. It
> seemed to run, and then all the troubles started !

Where were you when you did it? Were you in the installer? If in NetBSD,
in which directory?

>  I'm unsure
> >what you did to, "set up all the terminals in /etc/dev", and I'm concerned
> >that you might have damaged some file.
> 
> I was under the impression that MAKEDEV set up the terminals. I'm pretty

No, MAKEDEV makes device nodes, which is slightly different.

> sure that I _have_ damaged something, as the system still won't recognise
> my username or root, either logging in via Telnet or from the computer
> itself. I can get in by single user mode, so all is not completely lost,
> but I think I may need to reinstall in the near future ! I need to do quite
> a lot more crawling before I walk !

I think all you need to reinstall is the etc.tgz package, and you can do
it in single user mode.

> Just in case these ring any bells, a few symptoms I've noticed:
> I get "incorrect login" for my username _and_ root.

Start in single-user mode, and do an fsck on all of your partitions.
Either we or the fac can help with this if you have questions. Then "mount
-u /" and fire up vipw (I'm assuming /usr is in /, otherwise you need to
mount it too). Look and see what your password line looks like. You might
see an obvious bug.

Oh, and it is usual for root to not be able to telnet in. telnet is
insecure, and doing so would compromise the root password.

> When in as a single user I can su to my username. No password is required,
> but maybe thats normal when you're in as root ? When I "pwd" after su'ing,

Sounds normal.

> I find I'm in the /etc directory.

Very strange!

> When I use "more" I get the first screenful, but no more. The prompt returns.
> 
> >Chances are that you need to enable the getty process on tty00 (modem) or
> >tty01 (printer). Not having it on usually causes the problem you see -
> >everything just stops on the serial console after boot.
> 
> When I get things back to normal, I'll see if I can work out how to do this !

Good luck.

Take care,

Bill