More strange wsconsole/xorg interaction

[Paul Goyette <paul%whooppee.com@localhost>]

Last week I thought I'd gotten everything straightened out with my 
/etc/ttys vs /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers but it seems that all is not yet 
quite right.

Currently, I've got four multi-core amd64 systems all configured 
identically.  And due to a power outage earlier today all four systems 
have recently been cleanly rebooted.

On all four systems, I have identical /etc/ttys files:

        quicky:paul {103} cat /etc/ttys
        #
        #       from: @(#)ttys  5.1 (Berkeley) 4/17/89
        #       $NetBSD: ttys,v 1.5 2008/10/07 10:00:01 abs Exp $
        #
        # name  getty                           type    status          comments
        #
        console "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         vt100   on secure
        constty "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         vt100   off secure
        ttyE0   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         vt220   off secure
        ttyE1   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         vt220   on secure
        ttyE2   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         vt220   on secure
        ttyE3   "/usr/libexec/getty Pc"         vt220   on secure

And also identical /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers configurations:

        # $Xorg: Xserv.ws.cpp,v 1.3 2000/08/17 19:54:17 cpqbld Exp $
        #
        # Xservers file, workstation prototype
        #
        # This file should contain an entry to start the server on the
        # local display; if you have more than one display (not screen),
        # you can add entries to the list (one per line).  If you also
        # have some X terminals connected which do not support XDMCP,
        # you can add them here as well.  Each X terminal line should
        # look like:
        #       XTerminalName:0 foreign
        #
        # :0 local /usr/X11R7/bin/X vt05 -nolisten tcp
        :0 local /usr/X11R7/bin/X vt05

On all four of the machines, my /usr/X11R7/bin/xconsole display shows 
the following text being repeatedly displayed:

        NetBSD/amd64 (quicky.whooppee.com) (console)

        login:

Now for the strangeness...


Machine #1
---------
Switching to ttyE0 (Ctrl/Alt/F1) shows that the "real" console has 
exactly one occurrence of the text

        NetBSD/amd64 (quicky.whooppee.com) (console)

        login:

It would appear that it's waiting for a username, but no amount of 
typing has any effect.  Characters typed are echoed, but when \r is 
typed, the screen scrolls and that's it.  No password prompt or anything 
else.  ttyE[1-3] appear to work normally, and entering a username 
results in a prompt for password.  (However, when switching to any of 
ttyE[0-3] the display seems to be at 50% of normal intensity.)

ps shows a getty running on ttyE[1-3] but not on any other device; so 
what is repeated diplaying the "login:" prompt that keeps showing up in 
my xconsole window?


Machine #2
----------
It's pretty difficult to determine what's happening here, since 
switching to any of ttyE[0-3] just yields a totally black screen (ie, 0% 
intensity!).  Ctrl/Alt/F5 does, however, restore the X display.

ps shows a getty running on ttyE[1-3] but not on any other device...


Machine #3
----------
Here, the behavior is identical to Machine #1, however the display 
intensity is 1005 - normal.

ps shows a getty running on ttyE[1-3] but not on any other device...


Machine #4
----------
This one is really screwed up!

Initially, when switching to ttyE0, there was nothing displayed past the 
point where xdm was started.  ttyE[1-3] had display intensity at 100% 
and were working correctly, as far as I can remember.  But just now when 
I tried to switch from the X server on ttyE4 the screen suddenly came up 
black (well, my display reports that the video signal is "out of 
range")!

I can't even switch back to the X server, and my sysbeep is beeping 
about once every 30 or 40 seconds.  Running "/etc/rc.d/xdm stop" hangs 
waiting for the process to die.  I can manually kill both xdm and X, but 
restarting X does not seem to get the video card back into any sort of 
usable state.

ps shows no getty running on any device, not even ttyE[1-3].

I logged in remotely and rebooted the machine.  The ttyE0 display now 
shows the completion of system startup, including the expected date/time 
stamp.  But there's no "login:" prompt.  ttyE[1-3] are working normally, 
and display intensity is at the normal 100%.

ps shows a getty running on ttyE[1-3] PLUS console!  But there's no 
prompt on the console, and although characters are echoed, nothing 
happens when pressing \r.  At least I can switch back to the X server!

Update : checking back on Machine #4, it seems that the getty for ttyE0 
has disappeared, yet xconsole shows those login: prompts continuing.


I'm just totally confused - almost as confused as my machines!


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   Paul Goyette   | PGP DSS Key fingerprint: |  E-mail addresses:      |
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| Network Engineer | 0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 | pgoyette at juniper.net |
| Kernel Developer |                          | pgoyette at netbsd.org  |
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