[CLUE-Tech] How cool is MDK?

[David Anselmi]

Mike Benavides wrote:
> 
> I have a Init Id "x" responsing too fast: in XFree86.... It locks up the machine..... I
> suspect it may be the kernel level Geforce Nvida Driver....

Mike, maybe you already know this...

In your /etc/inittab file, some lines say 'respawn'.  That means that
when init starts those commands, it waits for them to die and restarts
them.

You frequently see this with getty (or its cousins).  Init starts a
getty and waits for that process to die.  Getty waits for a connection
on a tty and starts login (execs it, so that the login program replaces
the getty program in the same process).  Login asks for your name and
password and, if correct, execs your shell.  When you exit your shell,
the process dies and init respawns the getty--and we're back where we
started.  (A little simplified but hopefully still accurate).

So, what if you make a mistake and the command on the respawn line exits
immediately after starting (usually because some error happens)?  Well,
init respawns it, the same error occurs, and it dies again.  If this
went on unchecked, it would eat most of your cpu cycles.  So init
notices that it has started a command too frequently and disables it. 
That is the error you're seeing and if you compare it with your inittab
you may find out which command has the error.  Then you can try it by
hand (use the init=/bin/bash trick I showed you if you can't get into
the machine any other way).  When you try by hand, you'll see the
command's error message which should lead you toward a solution.  That
may be as simple as fixing a typo in inittab, or harder, like fixing the
config for the command.

If you want more help, post back or give me a call.

Dave