Can't get into netra

[stevenriz]

We have a netra that we changed the IP address on to pplace it on another network and restarted. We forgot that it uses an NIS server which is on the first network and forgot to remove it from the netra. Now it hangs during boot. Will it time itself out? There is only a ConsoleServer on this box. Not a real console nor is there a keyboard port on it nor is there a CDROM drive in it. Ahhhhh!! Any hints on how to get into it?

 

[Annihilannic]

I expect it should eventually time out, how long have you waited?

Can you telnet on to it while it's 'hanging'?

If not, you should be able to drop it to the OK prompt by doing a 'send brk' from your console telnet session, then try to boot -s.

If you can get to single user, try setting domainname to blank, move or remove /etc/defaultdomain, and uset /etc/nsswitch.conf.dns or similar instead of the NIS version. Annihilannic.

 

[Morsing]

In my experience it won't timeout and it's completely useless until the problem is fixed.

What's a 'netra'??

Cheers Henrik Morsing
Certified AIX 4.3 Systems Administration
& p690 Technical Support

 

[stevenriz]

In our past experience it doesn't come out of it either. A netra is a little rackmount computer without cdrom, kb. I am wondering now how to reload the OS without the CD. It will somehow have to be done over a network I assume.

 

[Annihilannic]

At what point does it hang though; can you not power cycle it and get to single user mode before it hangs?

To install from the network set up a Jumpstart server and boot net from the Netra. If you can do that though, you probably wouldn't need to do the reinstall, just boot from the network, mount the root partition and disable NIS as described above. Annihilannic.