The file system where your "/dev" directory is stored is being NFS mounted. 
NFS preserves last close semantics by moving a file to a ".nfsXXXX" file 
when you "remove" it (and it only truely gets deleted later when a cron 
script runs) but anyway, the client tried to remove /dev/console, NFS moved 
it because it was still open by another process. The MAKEDEV process 
probably worked (you can have more than one device with the same 
major/minor pairs, but as the .nfs file still exeisted, it was being found 
first in the kernels attempt to bind the major/minor pair to a device name. 
Removing the .nfs* file should have worked too but that would probably need 
to be done on the server with the client not booted. (insures that no one 
has it open!)

--Chuck

At 10:03 AM 4/18/00 -0600, emanuel stiebler wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Johnny Billquist <bqt@Update.UU.SE>
>To: emanuel stiebler <emu@ecubics.com>
>Cc: <port-vax@netbsd.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 07:02
>Subject: Re: netboot vax
>
>
> > There shouldn't exist a tty called .nfsA001a4.4. Start with fixing your
> > /dev directory. Easiest dont by changing to that directory and do
> > "./MAKEDEV all"
>
>Tried that already. Deleted everything in /dev (rm -fr [a-z]* ; rm -fr .*)
>Then tried a ./MAKDEV all
>
>but didn't work.
>
>Magically it worked to to a  "mv .nfsA001a4.4 console"
>
>No idea what is happening there ;-)
>
>cheers & thanks,
>emanuel
>