Subject: unusual 1.4.1 behaviour with 'halt' and 'shutdown' commands on SS1+
To: None <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: Craig Dewick <cdewick@lios.apana.org.au>
List: port-sparc
Date: 06/21/2000 06:05:24
Hi everyone,

My FTP server is now a Sparc 1+ after the previous box (Sparc Classic) died.

I've spent a day replacing the SCSI drive with a bigger one (and copied all
the filesystems over to the new drive, plus installed a bootblock), and I
noticed some unusual behaviour...

If I log in as root when the machine is running in multi-user mode, and I
type 'halt' to shut the system down, the kernel hangs and I have to manually
abort to get back to the ROM monitor prompt.

If I log in as root when the machin is running in multi-user mode, and I
type 'shutdown now' to get into single-user mode, then type 'halt' from the
single-user prompt, the kernel aborts properly and the machine drops back to
the ROM monitor as expected.

If I boot the kernel in single-user mode, 'halt' works as above.

So, what is going on to prevent 'halt' (as root) in multi-user mode from
aborting the kernel properly?

The machine has a *really* old v1.3 bootROM btw... Not sure if that is part
of the problem or not. The machine is running the generic 1.4.1 kernel from
the binary release.

Is there some problem with processes refusing to die in multi-user mode
which is causing the kernel to get stuck in a loop waiting for all the
processes to exit?

Regards,

Craig.
--
            Craig Dewick. Send email to "cdewick@lios.apana.org.au"
  Point a web browser at 'http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/sun_shack.html' to
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          about Sun Ripened Kernels, go to "http://www.sunrk.com.au"