Please help. Newbie in BIG trouble

rameshchandra · 09-03-2005, 01:39 PM

Hi, Cant start my computer. Ipaddress / Display server mismatch

I changed the IP address to 21.23.60.249 using the system tools network option. But I did not change the environment variable DISPLAY to reflect the ipaddress change.

System starts, gets me to the login screen, I enter my login id and password then a message box says

*********************************
Your session only lasted less than 10 seconds. If you have not logged out yourself, this could mean that there is some installation problem or that you may be out of diskspace. Try logging in with one of the failsafe sessions to see if you can fix this problem.

View Details (~/.xsession-errors file)

with an OK button. (When the ok button is clicked)

xhost: unable to display "172.35.10.40"

(gnome-session:3377): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

**********************************************

When I click ok it goes back to the login screen. And never comes out of this loop.

Is there a way for me to stop the startx cmd from running and make the system come up with the cmd line, using which I could go edit my DISPLAY variable with the new ipaddress.

Thanx in advance.
Newbie in trouble

morrolan · 09-03-2005, 02:10 PM

Are you using LILO or GRUB as your bootloader?

I've had similar problems, and it's quite simple.

Extract from www.redhat.com:

Quote:

If you are using LILO, you can enter single-user mode by typing linux single at the LILO boot: prompt.

If you are using GRUB as your boot loader, you can enter single-user mode using the following steps.

*

In the graphical GRUB boot loader screen, select the Red Hat Linux boot label and press [e] to edit it.
*

Arrow down to the kernel line and press [e] to edit it.
*

At the prompt, type single and press [Enter].
*

You will be returned to the GRUB screen with the kernel information. Press the [b] key to boot the system into single user mode.

A very bare system will boot, and you will have a command shell from which you can fix things.

Hope this helps!

rameshchandra · 09-03-2005, 02:21 PM

Thanx for replying.

In the GRUB loader screen there are 3 options

root (hd0, 0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-4.EL ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.21-4.EL.img

What do I change the second line saying 'kernel...' to

Please advice.

btmiller · 09-03-2005, 02:46 PM

You would press "e" to edit the last line and append the word "single" (no quotes) to it to boot to single user mode. But why don't you just press CTRL+ALT+F1 from the GUI login prompt to get to a text console, edit whatever files you need to edit, and then press CTRL+ALT+F7 to get back to X? Also, you should probably use 127.0.0.1 (localhost) for X based communication so it's not dependent on your public IP address.

rameshchandra · 09-04-2005, 12:00 AM

Thanx much Miller. I got my system back up and running now. Did the Ctrl Alt F1 in the login screen and edited my etc/profile.

Meanwhile, I use this system as an Oracle Apps. server. Need to set the display env. variable to the IP address.

Thanx again
RC