SUMMARY: /dev/console I/O error (syslog error?) after Patch 8 for 4.0b

From: Ronald D. Bowman <rdbowma_at_tsi.clemson.edu>
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:06:33 -0500

Hello Managers -

        First I want to thank Dr. Blinn and Irene Shilikhi for
        responding to my question(s). I would also like to
        state that the I/0 error on /dev/console has nothing
        to do with patch kit #8. This problem has been around
        for a while and shows up every time the machine is booted.
        My co-worker informed me of that after he read my post.
        
        Irene has seen the same problem for a few years, and it occurs only
        upon booting the machine.
        
        Dr. Blinn provided the following information about the privileges
        on /dev/console:
        
>> So, I looked at my system, and I have the following:
>> When logged in as myself: crw--w--w- 1 rdbowma users
>> when logged in as root: crw--w--w- 1 root daemon

>It looks correct. /dev/console is a "character special device" which is what
>the first letter in the ls -l means.

        The other problem associated with the mouse and keyboard locking when
        logging out has seemed to go away. after first installing the patch
        it was occuring at least 50% of the time. last night I logged in and
        out about 10 times with no problems. I am hoping that it is back to
        its cycle of about once every 2 months or so.
        
        Dr. Blinn had suggested the following:
>You could look through the patch inventory and see what gets replaced in
/sys/BINARY in the way of .mod files.

There were a lot of these files, and I looked at the ones I thought may be of
significance for this problem. I do not think there is a bad patch. I think
it was just timing on the machines part to act up after the patch was installed.

If I were to put a blame anywhere for the keyboard and mouse locking up, I would
have to say it is a sporadic problem on the motherboard. This will have to be
one of those nice "features" that we have to live with.

Thanks again to Irene and Dr. Blinn for their answers, and to Dave Sill for
maintaing the list.

Ron Bowman
Techno-Sciences, Inc.
rdbowma_at_tsi.clemson.edu
864-646-4028
Searchable Archive URLs for Alpha-osf-manager:
http://www-archive.ornl.gov:8000/ (simple search)
http://www-archive.ornl.gov:8000/archive/power.htm (more detailed)

--------------------------
Original question:
Hello Managers -
        
        Well I guess I broke rule number 1 - "if it ain't broke,
        don't mess with it".
        
        We have been running smoothly with Patch #6 applied to
        our system(eb164 DU4.0b). I finally decided to apply
        patch kit #8 last night. Everything appeared to run
        smoothly. However, we have been having problems with the keyboard and
        mouse locking up after someone logs off the machine(We have had
        this before, but very sporadically). Looking into possible
        reasons(assuming the patch was the problem) I found the
        following entries in the syslog.log file:
        
25-Jan-21:27/syslog.log
::::::::::::::
Jan 25 21:27:45 tsi syslogd: restart
Jan 25 21:28:09 tsi syslogd: /dev/console: I/O error
Jan 26 16:37:19 tsi syslogd: exiting on signal 15
::::::::::::::
26-Jan-16:38/syslog.log
::::::::::::::
Jan 26 16:38:09 tsi syslogd: restart
Jan 26 16:38:33 tsi syslogd: /dev/console: I/O error

        I assume the exiting on signal 15 comes from when I shutdown the machine
        my concern is the I/O error on /dev/console.
        
        I searched the archives and found one mention of a syslogd
        problem associated with jumbo patch #8, but that was in
        regards to remote host logging of problems.
        
        I also found a post (from 95) regarding the I/O error on the console.
        In it the answer dealt with the privileges of /dev/console.
        In the summary the solution was to make sure you had
         rw--w--w root system
         for /dev/console
         
         So, I looked at my system, and I have the following:
         When logged in as myself: crw--w--w- 1 rdbowma users
         when logged in as root: crw--w--w- 1 root daemon
         
        I need some help with understanding the above results, and I need
        to know if there is a privilege problem with /dev/console.
        
        Has anyone else experienced problems similar to this after applying Patch #8
        to DU 4.0B?
Received on Wed Jan 27 1999 - 14:09:52 NZDT

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