Q: The server machine for my network NetInfo domain won't boot. I get the message about being unable to contact the parent NetInfo server during boot. This is on the master, even! And, yes, I waited 20 minutes. What's wrong?\
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A: There are two things to check here. The simpler: boot the machine connected only to a null network (a doubly-terminated T connector). If the machine boots now, you've a problem on your network: cables, connectors, terminators, or possibly bad ethernet hardware on one of the computers on the network. It could also be an incorrectly configured GatorBox (or
\pard\tx560\tx1120\tx1680\tx2240\tx2800\tx3360\tx3920\tx4480\tx5040\tx5600\fc0 similar
\pard\tx960\tx1920\tx2880\tx3840\tx4800\tx5760\tx6720\tx7680\tx8640\tx9600 sort of device), or gateway or bridge or router.\
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Another test for part of this problem: in the local domain, rather than having
\pard\tx960\tx1920\tx2880\tx3840\tx4800\tx5760\tx6720\tx7680\tx8640\tx9600\f2\fs28 This might even be done before you take the server machine off the network and put it on a null network, as a fairly quick verification of the situation. If you like, you could leave the
\b serves
\b0 property's value of
\b ../network
\b0 on
\b broadcasthost
\b0 ; removing it might be important if broadcast packet handling is very badly fouled up on your network. (Once you fix things, we recommend you return your local domain to its default setting, or as appropriate for your installation.)\
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After setting an explicit server machine for the
\b ../network
\b0 domain, reboot the server. If NetInfo still won't bind correctly, it's something else besides an incorrect processing of broadcast packets.\
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The other possibility is a rather corrupted NetInfo database. One reason would be extraneous
\b serves
\b0 properties — a
\b serves
\b0 property indicating a machine serves a particular NetInfo domain when it doesn't. This is particularly troublesome with an entry like the following in what should be the root domain:\
Note that this machine claims to serve a database in the .. domain — the parent domain of what should be the root domain. But, root has no parent!\
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How might you see this, since NetInfo won't come up? Again, put the machine on a null network. To the “Type c to continue” message, go ahead and type `c' and boot without the parent. If you look for
Note the use of a tagged domain and an explicit IP address. This circumvents any sort of domain or host lookup mechanism (which might not work, or might time out). \
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From the results of the
\b niutil -list
\b0 , you can see that the domain has two servers (two machines, probably
\b rhino
\b0 and
\b cockatoo
\b0 , serve
\b ./network
\b0 ), one machine serves no domain (probably a non-NeXT computer), and one machine serves
\b ../network
\b0 in what should be the root domain. To determine which machine serves
\b0 property. If you want to change the value of the property, use
\b niutil
\b0 with the
\b -createprop
\b0 option instead.\
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(How might an invalid
\b serves
\b0 property value get into the database? Perhaps someone mistyped something, or perhaps someone inappropriately moved a directory from the local domain's
\b /machines
\b0 directory into the network domain.)\
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Incidentally, the first solution to the problem — bad network hardware, or bad ethernet transceiver or controller on some computer — will likely manifest itself in other ways. For example, printing might not work; check your printer error log (usually
\b /usr/adm/lpd-errs
\b0 ) for error messages. It's also entirely possible that many other network operations, such as used by the
\b ping
\b0 (8) command, will work fine: perhaps what's fouled up is correct handling of broadcast packets (which could also be caused by an incorrect software configuration).\
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QA598\
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\pard\tx520\tx1060\tx1600\tx2120\tx2660\tx3200\tx3720\tx4260\tx4800\tx5320 Valid for 1.0\
