very slow boot (newbie)

[Kevin Kinsey]

Barnaby Scott wrote:
> Many thanks to all who have helped me on this one - I won't post a 
> message in response to every suggestion, but they have all helped - 
> thank you!
> 
> It turns out it was sendmail causing the delay, so now my /etc/rc.comf 
> reads:
> 
> hostname="frankbruno"
> ifconfig_re0="DHCP"
> keymap="uk.iso"
> linux_enable="YES"
> moused_enable="YES"
> saver="logo"
> usbd_enable="YES"
> sendmail_enable="NONE"
> 
> (Someone asked what was in this file). The last line that I have just 
> added does cure the problem. But...
> 
> ...it does not cure the problem for me if I decide that I do want 
> sendmail! I could cross that bridge when I come to it, but I would 
> prefer to gain some insight here if anyone can bear any more on this topic.
> 
> Adding
> 127.0.0.1    frankbruno
> to /etc/hosts did not cure the problem. Could that be because the lookup 
> that causes the delay is a reverse one? If so, it would be trying to 
> find a name for 192.168.0.4 (I think that's the one I have been getting 
> recently) which is still not in hosts.
> 
> I would rather not mess with the IP allocation if possible - having it 
> automatic is much more useful and means I cannot create condradictory 
> records in different places.
> 
> Looking in /var/run/dmesg.boot turned up nothing obvious to me at least, 
> booting in Safe Mode made no difference, and verbose logging turned up 
> nothing.
> 
> However, I did discover a tip posted a couple of years ago, and that was 
> to press ^T when the boot stalled. God knows what this does, but it 
> turned up the following response:
> 
> load: 0.85 cmd:sendmail 454 [kqread] 0.00u 0.01s 0% 1912k
> 
> I thinks that answers all the things that were suggested - can anyone 
> see a way of reinstating sendmail without the stalled boot process, and 
> without having to reserve specific IP addresses for each computer?
> 
> Barnaby Scott
> 


Prequel:  I know nothing about dhclient/DHCP interfaces other
than if I want one, I can put "ifconfig foo1="DHCP" in rc.conf.

If you can figure out what your address is post-booting, you
should be able to create a simple wrapper script and run it from
cron via the "@reboot" tag.

Pseudo-code:
    sleep(5 min);
    write "my.ip.ad.ress" >> /etc/hosts
    sh /etc/rc.d/sendmail start

But, I'd strongly advise you to use a static IP if your
host needs to be an MTA.  Otherwise, configure your MUA's
to use a real MTA (which have static IP's, DNS, etc., etc.).

Kevin Kinsey


-- 
I didn't get sophisticated -- I just got tired.
But maybe that's what sophisticated is -- being tired.
		-- Rita Gain