When I try to logout / exit the command line my system hangs. Can someone explain to me what steps Linux goes through / what files Linux uses when you give it the exit or logout command. I have searched man pages, google, various forums and don't know where else to look - total blank.

I would like to be able to solve this problem myself without having to reinstall - I can start the system in safe mode to compare files - just need to know what files I need to be looking at to see what the problem might be.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks....

try @ the command line

poweroff -f

Hi rakriege - the reason I am having problems is that one of my uni assignments requires me to download a 'system emergency' which causes certain things to happen to linux which we then have to find out correct. One of my 'emergencies' seems to be that there is a problem with the way the system either logs out of the command line / login shell and hangs - or that it logs out okay but then can't execute the login shell again. I have searached man pages, internet etc to no avail as to what could have happened. It will probably be something really small - like some command being commented out, or a variable being passed the wrong value - but I have exhausted all my ideas of where it could be. If I was an employed systems administrator and had no idea what to do - I could come here and look for an answer - hence why I don't see that it would be any problem for me to ask here. SORRY about the long winded reply - just thought that it might help you to be able to fix my 'emergency'. Thanks for any more help you can give me.

can you post your /etc/inittab ?

# blah
# blah
# blah
id:3:initdefault:

# System initialisation.
si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit

10:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
11:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
12:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
13:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
14:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 4
15:5:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 5
16:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6

# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

# When our UPS tells us power has failed, blah blah
# blah blah
pf:owerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f -h +2 "Power Failure; System Shutting Down"

# If power was restored blah blah
pr:12345owerokwait:/sbin/shutdown -c 'Power Restored; Shutdown Cancelled"

# Run gettys in standard runlevels
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
2:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty2
3:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty3
4:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty4
5:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty5
6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

# Run xdm in runlevel 5
x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon


(NOT Sure about the xdm one above - I only have a printout copy of the inittab prior to execution of the 'emergency' - but I did compare them after the emergency and they were both the same, excepting that after printing out my inittab I had changed my default to run level 3 - not sure if this changes the bottom x:5:respawn thing as well. I just know that when I compared it, it all looked the same except the run level I had changed it to)

Does this help???

BTW: If anyone is curious as to whether I am trying to suss out the answer to use it in my assignment - I'm not - I have already submitted my assignment - Now I'm curious to see what the actual problem was. :-)

Remember kids, Crack is wack.

When posting, post constructively or don't post at all. This doesn't help the person asking the question seeking solutions at all.

Regards.