I've seen that type of behavior from time to time over the past two years
on several types of systems, including Linux.
There are some files in the system that get updated whenever a user logs
in, as well as processes that check for certain things (biff, for example)
before you get a login prompt.
Sometimes, one of these files gets corrupted and *bam* everything locks up
when you telnet in.
-----
While I can't even give you the slightest idea where the problem is or how
to fix it, I can give you a little bit of advice on how to resolve such an
issue like that remotely.
Check to see if you can run a process WITHOUT logging into the system,
i.e. with 'rsh', 'remsh', or 'ssh'. In order for this to be an option,
you must have inetd configured to run the proper daemons or have sshd
running on the machine.
If you are able to (and if you can do this as root), use one of those
programs to send the '/sbin/shutdown -r now' command. This will at least
reboot the machine and bring it to more of a "sane" state.
Linux, HP-UX, and MP-RAS seem to be afflicted with the same problem from
time to time. Again, I don't know the cause, just how to recover
sometimes.
Brian
On Mon, 20 Apr 1998 tmuller@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have noticed something quite strange regarding the stability of the kernel
> on the 2.1.96 kernel.
>
> I have beat the crap out of this kernel and haven't had even one oops, crash,
> lock, etc. until recently. I had the opportunity to try out a dynamic ip
> address hosting from a site (30 days) and thought it would be cool to login
> and check my mail. Well here's were the fun started.
>
> Logged in, looked around, and then 'fetchmail -a'. I thought, pretty
> harmless. Well I was wrong. I had to come home and reboot cause the system
> was frozen solid and the ppp link was also locked. I was running X windows
> at the time, but I haven't tried this without X to see if it is causing the
> problem.
>
> One other strange thing. My machine will serve http and ftp just fine, but
> once that damn telnet connection starts up a process, POW>.
>
> I am available for more tests that anyone wants to do.
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Troy
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> email: tmuller@agora.rdrop.com
> PGP 5.0 key: hkp://pgp.ai.mit.edu
> snail: not.
> voice: not, twice.
> web: http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~tmuller
> Resident: Pullman, Washington USA
> helpful suggestion:
> perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> As of June 11, 1998 it is against the law in the State of Washington
> to send unwanted, unsolicited e-mail without proper identification from
> a computer located in the State of Washington or to an e-mail account of
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>
> Individuals who receive junk e-mail can collect up to $500 per violation.
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