getty dies on DMF

[Liudvikas Bukys]

> We run 4.2bsd on a Vax11/780.  We have 4 DEC dz's and 2 Emulex
> DMF-32's on a single Unibus.  The problem we're running into is
> that the getty's on the DMF's start to die off.  I can re-initialize
> them only by shutdowning the system down or editing /etc/ttys to 
> disable the ports which have died, doing a kill -1 1, and then re-edit
> ttys to enable the ports with another kill -1 1.  Trying to initialize
> the ports with a kill -1 1 prior to editing the file does not work. The
> getty's die off at random times and on random ports.  The DZ's are
> fine.  Does anyone know of a driver bug or had this problem
> themselves?  Does anyone have a more reasonable solution to reactive
> these ports?

Unsaid but probably true is that the DMF lines are attached to a port
multiplexor, data switch, or whatever else you want to call it.  It is
likely that what is happening is that your VAX does not hold DTR down
long enough for the switch to notice it, so the switch doesn't consider
the previous connection completely closed down yet, and won't allow any
more connections to be established to it.  The popular quick solution
to this is to put a sleep of at least 1 second into /etc/init, just
after it fork()s but before it open()s.

Liudvikas Bukys
rochester!bukys (uucp) via allegra, decvax, seismo
bukys at rochester (arpa)