Hi list.

Got a major problem which I hope someone on the list would be able to give me 
some pointers : when I came to work today, my computer was down with a kernel 
oops. after reset, it wouldn't load - when rc.sysinit reaches depmod -A it 
freezes and won't go any further.

Eventually I tracked it does to /sbin/initlog - called by the action function 
in /etc/ini.d/functions - it does not return. but not all the calls to 
initlog get stuck: rc.sysinit runs fine until it mounts swapd (also calling 
action and passing it the actuall command to be performed through initlog). 
the mount succeeds and execution continues down the script at which point 
rc.sysinit resets an environment variable called IN_INITLOG which was up 
until then set to "yes" (which, IIUC, means the script is being run from 
initlog itself). after that, additional calls to initlog will get the system 
stuck. if I remove the command to reste IN_INITLOG, execution continues 
normally passed the initlog call, until rc.sysinit calls rc.modules which 
uses initlog to report module loading - this gets stuck regardless of the 
value of IN_INITLOG.

Now, I don't understand any of it, but then in my desperation I tried to boot 
w/o devfs (passing devfs=nomount) to the kernel - this apparently makes the 
entire issue go away : everything works normally (except that devfs isn't 
mounted and I really want it).

I'm using Mandrake 9.1 with some updates from the current cooker. I'd like to 
note that I haven't installed anything major in the system in the last week, 
certainly not since I last rebooted. at first when the system refused to come 
up, I booted from a rescue CD and installed the latest kernel 2.4.21-3mdk, 
but of course this didn't change a thing. I also tried to boot using the orig 
MDK91 kernel with the same effects.

I'd appreciate if anyone can hint on what else I might try to do.

-- 
Oded

::..
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.


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