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- From: hwr@pilhuhn.de (Heiko W.Rupp)
- Newsgroups: news.software.nntp,news.software.b,news.answers
- Subject: INN FAQ Part 3/9: Reasons why INN isn't starting
- Supersedes: <faq.p3_881029525@pilhuhn.de>
- Followup-To: news.software.nntp
- Date: 9 Dec 1997 03:25:34 +0100
- Organization: The Home Of The Pilhuhn
- Lines: 307
- Approved: hwr@pilhuhn.de
- Expires: 26 Dec 1997 02:25:25 GMT
- Message-ID: <faq.p3_881634325@pilhuhn.de>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: snert.pilhuhn.de
- Summary: This article is part 3 of a multi-part FAQ:
- Part 3: This includes help with getting innd to start.
- Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!boulder!csnews!coop.net!zdc!super.zippo.com!lotsanews.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter1!news.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!newspump.sol.net!sol.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!fu-berlin.de!news.belwue.de!news.uni-ulm.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!pilhuhn.de!snert!news
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu news.software.nntp:43976 news.software.b:22605 news.answers:118768
-
- Posted-By: post_faq 2.10
- Archive-name: usenet/software/inn-faq/part3
- Last Changed: $Date: 1997/11/04 02:25:53 $ $Revision: 2.18 $
-
- Part 3 of 9
-
- INN FAQ Part 1: General and questions from people that don't (yet) run INN
- INN FAQ Part 2: Specific notes for specific operating systems
- INN FAQ Part 3: Reasons why INN isn't starting
- INN FAQ Part 4: The debugging tutorial (setup of feeds etc.)
- INN FAQ Part 5: Other error messages and what they mean
- INN FAQ Part 6: Day-to-day operation and changes to the system
- INN FAQ Part 7: Problems with INN already running
- INN FAQ Part 8: Appendix A: Norman's install guide
- INN FAQ Part 9: Appendix B: Configurations for certain systems
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: Table Of Contents for Part 3/9
-
- =====================================================================
- TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR PART 3/9
- =====================================================================
-
- REASONS WHY INN ISN'T STARTING:
- 3.1 What runs as what?
- 3.2 Why does innd just exit right away with no message?
- 3.3 syslog message: inndstart: inndstart cant bind Address already in use
- 3.4 syslog message: ME internal no to group
- 3.5 syslog message: ME internal no control and/or junk group
- 3.6 syslog message: Can't setup communication (bind failure)
- 3.7 syslog message: ME bad_newsfeeds no feeding sites
- 3.8 syslog message: ME cant GetConfigValue
- 3.9 syslog message: ME cant accept RCreader
- 3.10 syslog message: ME cant ioctl(TIOCNOTTY) Invalid argument
- 3.11 syslog message: ME cant fork /some/tool Resource temporarily unavailable
- 3.12 /usr/local/etc/rc.news: (M-i)^P^L^A.Gd: not found
- 3.13 syslog message: ME cant dbminit /usr/local/news/history
-
- =====================================================================
- REASONS WHY INN ISN'T STARTING
- =====================================================================
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.1) What runs as what?
-
- 1. The first "make install" MUST RUN AS ROOT.
- 2. Other "make install" runs as "root", but sometimes "news" will work.
- 3. "rc.news" runs as "root" for versions prior to 1.5 and as "news"
- for INN1.5 and later.
- 4. "news.daily" runs as "news".
- 5. ALL CRON JOBS (sendbatch, sendnntp, send-ihave, etc.) run as "news".
-
- HOW TO REMEMBER THIS:
- EVERYTHING RUNS AS "NEWS" EXCEPT:
- "rc.news" runs as root, since it runs from rc.local (which
- runs as root) and since it runs things that start out
- as root but become "news" after doing special things.
- "make install" runs as "root" because it has to do "chown" to
- set up files securely.
-
- If your innd nevertheless runs as root, then also look at #7.52
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.2) Why does innd just exit right away with no message?
-
- First, fix your syslog: innd (nearly) always logs a message before it exits.
- (The INN distribution includes a version of the current UCB syslog, along
- with instructions on how to install it. Ultrix systems might want to look at
- the syslog that is available on gatekeeper.dec.com). If innd doesn't
- syslog, then it did dump a core file, that you can inspect.
-
- Second, the most common cause of this is that you do not have a history
- file (or no history database). You will see a message like this:
-
- ME cant dbminit /usr/local/news/history No such file or directory
-
- ( Note that in versions > INN1.5, the word ``ME'' is replaced by
- ``SERVER'' ).
- This means that you do not have a history database (or no history.dir
- and history.pag files). If you are just installing INN for your first
- time, you might want to run the BUILD script in your INN source tree.
- Or, you can read about makehistory in doc/news-recovery.8; if you do
- the latter, make sure to rename the database files (pay attention to
- the two "mv" commands).
-
- Another possibility is a bad active file; e.g. one line only has three
- fields instead of four. You can find such lines by running expire:
-
- expire -n -x -t
-
- which will then show you which lines are bad.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.3) syslog message: inndstart: inndstart cant bind Address already in use
-
- >I try to start INN but got this error in my syslog file:
- > inndstart: inndstart cant bind Address already in use
- >Can anyone give me a hint on how to fix it ?
-
- Something else is already using port 119. Comment out the line in
- /etc/inetd.conf for port 119 and "kill -HUP" the inetd program (which
- makes it re-read the configuration file).
-
- Remember, there are two ways for programs to take control over an
- incoming port. (1) the program runs and grabs the port (which has to
- be done as root) and then handles all incoming connections, or (2) the
- program is listed in /etc/inetd.conf and inetd grabs the port and hands
- off any incoming connections to the program specified in
- /etc/inetd.conf (i.e. one process gets started for every incoming
- connection.)
-
- If you do (1) and (2) at the same time, the inetd will grab the port
- and then anyone else that grabs the port will get an "Address already
- in use" error.
-
- INN's "innd" program is type (1). C News+NNTP uses something that is
- type (2).
-
- Most people that get this error ran C News+NNTP a long time ago and
- forgot to remove the line from their /etc/inetd.conf file.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.4) syslog message: ME internal no to group
-
- If you set MERGE_TO_GROUPS to "DO", you have to have a "to" group
- listed in your "active" file or you will get the above syslog message
- and innd will not start. You can edit the active file directly if innd
- isn't running (see also #6.3).
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.5) syslog message: ME internal no control and/or junk group
-
- You must have a newsgroup named "control" and a newsgroup named
- "junk" for innd to start. Since innd isn't running, you can edit
- the active file directly
-
- Add these lines:
-
- control 0000000000 0000000000 y
- junk 0000000000 0000000000 y
-
- --tal
-
- Also make sure that the directories in the spool either don't exist or
- are writable by the news user.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.6) syslog message: Can't setup communication (bind failure)
-
- The message "Can't setup communication (bind failure) Permission denied"
- means that the permissions on your _PATH_NEWSCONTROL directory
- are wrong. You might want to delete the directory and "make install"
- to create it again.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.7) syslog message: ME bad_newsfeeds no feeding sites
-
- (Rich Salz replies:) The syslog message is telling you that you are not
- feeding news to any sites. You have to have at least one feed. (You
- may consider this to be a bug, it's just that I'm too lazy to make
- everything work right if you don't have any newsfeeds.)
-
- Until you go into production and start feeding sites, add a line like this:
- dummy-feed:!*::
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.8) syslog message: ME cant GetConfigValue
-
- Jan 12 17:38:06 galaxy innd: ME cant GetConfigValue pathhost Error 0
- ^^^^^^^^
-
- This means you don't have "pathhost:" in your inn.conf.
-
- GetConfigValue is the routine that gets data out of the inn.conf file.
- If you get the above error, it means you don't have a particular value
- in your inn.conf. Run "inncheck -v" usually will tell you what you
- need to do.
-
- Note that there might be a slightly different message:
-
- Nov 1 15:39:30 serv nnrpd[5973]: cant getconfigvalue Error 0
-
- In that case the host where nnrpd was running had DNS resolving
- problems. Getting DNS to work correctly again solved the problem.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.9) syslog message: ME cant accept RCreader
-
- Situation: INN 1.4sec on ICS2.0 or Interactive Unix System V Release
- 3.2 or one of the many SVR4 Unix's. You get syslog messages like:
-
- Jul 14 12:07:44 isdn.IFNS.DE innd: ME cant accept RCreader No more
- Jul 14 12:07:44 isdn.IFNS.DE innd: ME cant accept RCreader Protocol error
- May 7 12:05:07 salyko.cube.net innd: ME cant accept RCreader Protocol error
-
- when you connect to innd from a remote machine, but not from the
- local host.
-
- Problem: Well, that's just another bug in the SVR4 networking code.
-
- Chris Munonye <munonye@ifns.de> reports that this patch fixed the
- problem:
-
- *** RCS/rc.c Sun Jul 18 15:02:50 1993
- --- rc.c Sun Jul 18 15:04:35 1993
- ***************
- *** 173,178 ****
- --- 173,181 ----
-
- /* Get the connection. */
- size = sizeof remote;
- + if (SetNonBlocking(cp->fd, FALSE) < 0)
- + syslog(L_ERROR, "%s cant un-nonblock %d in RCreader(errno %d) %m :",
- + LogName, cp->fd, errno);
- if ((fd = accept(cp->fd, (struct sockaddr *)&remote, &size)) < 0) {
- syslog(L_ERROR, "%s cant accept RCreader %m", LogName);
- return;
-
- Under Solaris, when accept() fails and sets errno to EPROTO, it means
- the client has sent a TCP reset before the connection has been
- accepted
- by the server.
-
- Therefore, the syslog messages Inn produces:
- innd: ME cant accept RCreader Protocol error
- can be merely ignored under Solaris.
-
- Note that in 2.5.1 with the Internet Server Supplement and also in 2.6
- the errno for this case has changed from EPROTO to ECONNABORTED.
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.10) syslog message: ME cant ioctl(TIOCNOTTY) Invalid argument
-
- Most likely a botched config.data - TIOCNOTTY is a BSDism and
- probably doesn't work on SVR4-based system. (If you aren't sure
- if your Unix is SVR4-based, get out of the netnews business).
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.11) syslog message: ME cant fork /some/tool Resource temporarily unavailable
-
- User news ran out of processes and wasn't able to fork off the specific tool.
- You need either just raise the limit on the number of processes in the
- shell which starts innd (e.g in rc.news :
-
- unlimit maxproc
-
- or if that doesn't help raise the number of processes in the kernelconfig
- (modt often by raising maxusers and also raising the # of processes per user).
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.12) /usr/local/etc/rc.news: (M-i)^P^L^A.Gd: not found
-
- Q: rc.news reports "/usr/local/etc/rc.news: (M-i)^P^L^A.Gd: not found"
-
- A: Bob Izenberg <bei@io.com> reports:
-
- Here's an unlikely possibility that bit us once. In an almost all-Sun
- environment, I requested and got /bin/ksh as my shell. When I logged
- in, I got a burst of control characters and a closed connection after a
- few seconds. It turned out that ksh followed about fifteen symbolic
- links to a file that had been moved/removed.
-
- Therefore, make sure that the first line in rc.news refers to a shell
- that really exists. If you run "sh /usr/local/etc/rc.news" make sure
- you don't have anything else named "sh" in your path. (And if you
- have something named "sh" in your path that isn't a Bourne Shell or
- a clone, worry!)
-
- ------------------------------
-
- Subject: (3.13) syslog message: ME cant dbminit /usr/local/news/history
-
- That means that some of the history files are missing -- See #3.2
-
- There is also a message: cant dbminit ME (Math) argument out of domain of func
- This means that your history.dir file is not formatted correctly. It should
- look something like this: (from James Brister)
-
- dbz 3 2579 9 C 128 127 24 4 3 2 1 0
- 4677 1706 1706 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
-
- (i.e. two lines of ascii, most of it being numbers).
-
- In the latter case you can do:
-
- cd /where/the/history/is
- rm history.dir
- rm history.pag
- makehistory -r -f history
-
- --
- See <a href="http://www.netbsd.org">NetBSD</a> for a multiplatform OS
- What would you call a BBS run by a mom?
- A "mother board".
-