Safe Shutdown

[HurricaneJames]

I got my Octane running! This the first Silicon Graphics machine that I admin, so I'm not sure about a lot of things. Lack of knowledge did not deter me though. I managed to get the machine up and login.

It calls itself "voodoo" and has 4 accounts: root, EZsetup, demos, and guest. I have no idea if this was the previous owner, or a SGI default. "voodoo" only has a 2GB drive with 256MB free. I suspect this means it is either some kind of boot disk or it relied heavily on NFS. The boot process was really slow and complained a lot about lack of network, so I am guessing the later.

I played around a bit, looking for things and generally remembering how painful SGI could be to the uninitiated. Then I realized that I made a huge mistake, only root can shutdown. I have no idea what the root password is, apparently not blank, single space, or the machine name. No other account seems to have shutdown permissions. I would prefer to avoid pulling the plug without doing a real shutdown.

Any suggestions?

[uunix]

This the first Silicon Graphics machine that I admin

and generally remembering how painful SGI could be to the uninitiated

Contradiction?

Anyway, just press the power button, it should power off correctly..

If it doesn't, press it again and it will just power off.. (I wouldn't worry)

For network complaints, you will need to rid the /etc/fstab file of alien mounted files.

Your next task is getting that passwd reset. Do you have any media? CD Drive? Network host? Another IRIX machine?

[HurricaneJames]

This the first Silicon Graphics machine that I admin

and generally remembering how painful SGI could be to the uninitiated

Contradiction?

Not really. The first SGI I used was an O2. I was only a user, and it was painful until I learned it. I was the programmer on the team, and coming from Visual Studio. Ironically, I used to think UNIX environments were harder.

Now I'm an owner/admin, which is a whole different bag of crazy. Don't get me wrong, I love thing kind of thing, but it will take a while to remember what I forgot and learn what I didn't even know I didn't know. Until then, pain and suffering.

Anyway, just press the power button, it should power off correctly..

If it doesn't, press it again and it will just power off.. (I wouldn't worry)

That did it! Thanks. I was afraid to try that in case it powered down without unmounting the file systems.

For network complaints, you will need to rid the /etc/fstab file of alien mounted files.

Your next task is getting that passwd reset. Do you have any media? CD Drive? Network host? Another IRIX machine?

Another IRIX machine: not yet, but soon I hope.
Media drive: a really old SCSI drive that I hope still works.
Media: not yet, but Ian just stuck a big stack in the post.
Network host: this is my plan once I get the media.

I may try to find an old SCSI card to toss it in a Linux/FreeBSD system. Probably not going to keep this drive for long anyway, it is only 2GB.