Maybe you haven't configured /etc/rc.conf?

On Fri, 23 Oct 1998, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> 
> phil freeman writes:
> > Christofer C. Bell wrote:
> > > phil freeman wrote:
> > > >
> > > > right now i'm recompiling my kernel from work... where can i find the
> > > > config file that starts the shell during boot-up so i can remotely
> > > > reboot my box ?
> > > 
> > > I'm afraid your question doesn't make much sense as worded.  Perhaps if
> > > you could give some more information, I might be able to help you.  Good
> > > luck!
> > 
> > when i boot i get a root shell comes up before it finishes. it's
> > actually before the root partition is mounted read write. and if i
> > reboot it remotely it'll just sit there.... any ideas ?
> 
> Either you are booting the machine single user, in which case it is
> doing what you are asking it to do, or the system is printing an error 
> message to the effect that fsck has failed, and you are ignoring
> it. If the root partition *is* read write and you aren't correct,
> anything in /etc/rc might be failing in some catastrophic manner.
> 
> The error messages that get printed out under such circumstances are
> generally pretty explicit.
> 
> You will pardon my saying this, but you've posted a couple of messages 
> to tech-net and netbsd-users and such that indicate that you haven't
> ever read the /etc/rc script to see what it does or read the
> documentation or paid any attention to the error messages printed on
> boot.
> 
> Perry
>