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System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration
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Document Information

Preface

1.  Managing Terminals and Modems (Overview)

2.  Setting Up Terminals and Modems (Tasks)

3.  Managing Serial Ports With the Service Access Facility (Tasks)

4.  Managing System Resources (Overview)

5.  Displaying and Changing System Information (Tasks)

6.  Managing Disk Use (Tasks)

7.  Managing UFS Quotas (Tasks)

8.  Scheduling System Tasks (Tasks)

9.  Managing System Accounting (Tasks)

10.  System Accounting (Reference)

11.  Managing System Performance (Overview)

12.  Managing System Processes (Tasks)

13.  Monitoring System Performance (Tasks)

14.  Troubleshooting Software Problems (Overview)

15.  Managing System Messages

16.  Managing Core Files (Tasks)

17.  Managing System Crash Information (Tasks)

18.  Troubleshooting Miscellaneous Software Problems (Tasks)

What to Do If Rebooting Fails

What to Do If You Forgot the Root Password

x86: What to Do If the SMF Boot Archive Service Fails During a System Reboot

What to Do If a System Hangs

What to Do If a File System Fills Up

File System Fills Up Because a Large File or Directory Was Created

A TMPFS File System is Full Because the System Ran Out of Memory

What to Do If File ACLs Are Lost After Copy or Restore

Troubleshooting Backup Problems

The root (/) File System Fills Up After You Back Up a File System

Make Sure the Backup and Restore Commands Match

Check to Make Sure You Have the Right Current Directory

Interactive Commands

Troubleshooting Common Agent Container Problems in the Oracle Solaris OS

Port Number Conflicts

How to Check Port Numbers

Compromised Security for Superuser Password

How to Generate Security Keys for the Oracle Solaris OS

19.  Troubleshooting File Access Problems (Tasks)

20.  Resolving UFS File System Inconsistencies (Tasks)

21.  Troubleshooting Software Package Problems (Tasks)

Index

What to Do If a System Hangs

A system can freeze or hang rather than crash completely if some software process is stuck. Follow these steps to recover from a hung system.

  1. Determine whether the system is running a window environment and follow these suggestions. If these suggestions don't solve the problem, go to step 2.

    • Make sure the pointer is in the window where you are typing the commands.

    • Press Control-q in case the user accidentally pressed Control-s, which freezes the screen. Control-s freezes only the window, not the entire screen. If a window is frozen, try using another window.

    • If possible, log in remotely from another system on the network. Use the pgrep command to look for the hung process. If it looks like the window system is hung, identify the process and kill it.

  2. Press Control-\ to force a “quit” in the running program and (probably) write out a core file.

  3. Press Control-c to interrupt the program that might be running.

  4. Log in remotely and attempt to identify and kill the process that is hanging the system.

  5. Log in remotely, become superuser or assume an equivalent role and reboot the system.

  6. If the system still does not respond, force a crash dump and reboot. For information on forcing a crash dump and booting, see Forcing a Crash Dump and Reboot of the System in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

  7. If the system still does not respond, turn the power off, wait a minute or so, then turn the power back on.

  8. If you cannot get the system to respond at all, contact your local service provider for help.