Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!lll-lcc!unisoft!john
From: john@unisoft.UUCP (John Sovereign)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aux
Subject: Re: login doesn't work when toolbox has console.
Summary: put console getty earlier in inittab
Keywords: controlling terminal
Message-ID: <1942@unisoft.UUCP>
Date: 16 Feb 89 19:38:53 GMT
References: <7290@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Reply-To: john@unisoft.UUCP (John Sovereign)
Followup-To: comp.unix.aux
Distribution: usa
Organization: UniSoft Corporation
Lines: 38

In article <7290@pyr.gatech.EDU> glenn@vail.gatech.edu (Glenn Souther) writes:
>We have encountered a critical problem with our general access A/UX machines.
>When attempting to login ON THE CONSOLE, after entering the account name,
>A/UX responds with an incorrect login message, and again asks "login:"
>After hearing that System V has this problem when a process has the console
>other than the getty/login. So, I telneted into one of the machines and

The toolboxdaemon is not a well-behaved daemon.  It does not release its
controlling terminal -- in this case, the console.  (For information on the
correct way to do this see Dave Lennert's classical treatment in the Dec. '88
issue of "UNIX World".)

One "fix" which may work is to move the entry in /etc/inittab for the console
getty before the entry for the toolboxdaemon, since init reads the inittab
and performs its actions from the beginning.  To give the getty as much
time as possible to seize the controlling terminal, move its entry in front
of all the "level 2" entries, i.e., before the errdemon and cron.  You should
also change the "action" fields for the errdemon and cron to "wait"; this
will have the effect of synchronizing init.  If the toolboxdaemon is still
grabbing the console before the getty, move the toolboxdaemon entry farther
down in /etc/inittab.

One side effect of this change may be that initial console logins will
fail because YP is not running yet (you may be observing this already);
however, the symptom is slightly different -- you will be prompted for your
password.

Of course, the "real" fix is for getty to perform something like BSD's
vhangup(), but perhaps not quite so fascist. :->

John Sovereign
UniSoft Corporation
{uunet,ucbvax,...}!unisoft!john

P.S.  There is another bug where the single-user shell is not the Bourne
shell and another process has the console open before going multi-user.
You could be hitting this if you've changed root's shell and the
toolboxdaemon is being started in single-user mode.