128 ttys Do Not Have a Login After Replacing the PCI Card


Environment

OS Level: AIX Version 4.3.1
Type/Model: 43P

Problem

A power failure destroyed the 128-port PCI card on the system. After replacing the card, none of the 128 terminals on the eight RANs had a login prompt.

Solution

Listed is a history of the steps taken to solve the problem.

  1. Started by listing all the devices at address 04-01. They were all available, including the eight RANs.
  2. Ran cfgmgr and penable -a.
  3. Ran ps -ef | grep tty. This showed nothing but the console.
  4. Ran errpt -a | more. This showed normal messages from shutdown.
  5. Deleted and re-added tty19, obtaining the same result.
  6. Able to cat the ttys with or without clocal being added.
  7. altpin was disabled on all the ttys. Tried enable altpin but it did not work.
  8. Did not find processes running on these ports.
  9. Tried /usr/sbin/getty /dev/tty31. This got a login prompt on tty31.
  10. Entered root and got the following error before the password prompt:
    3004-004: you must exec login from lowest login shell
  11. Ran df to check filesystem space, nothing was full.
  12. Attempted running nohup /usr/sbin/getty /dev/tty31.
  13. cat nohup.out resulted in the following:
    ksh:/etc/wall not found
    ksh:/etc/wall not found
    ksh:/etc/wall not found

    There are 128 lines in the file, one for each tty.
  14. Viewed /etc/inittab. Removing only non-IBM entries, the file looked good.
  15. Commented out checkups entries. This starts the UPS software from BEST.
  16. Issued init q. There were no changes, ttys still did not work.
  17. Issued ls -al /etc/wall. There wasn't a file in /etc.
  18. Made a link from /usr/sbin/wall to /etc/wall and reset permissions on both. There were still no logins.
  19. Ran ps -ef | grep checkups. Found one process and killed this process. Immediately got a login on 128 terminals.



[ Doc Ref: 9260148848838     Publish Date: May. 25, 1999     4FAX Ref: none ]