I'm running RH9. Recently, when I reboot or shutdown the system, when it gets to iptables it just hangs.

Of course I don't think I've changed any settings before this... but I'm not sure how to shut the machine off cleanly when it's hung, or how to fix this problem.

If anyone has help I'd appreciate it. Or if I need to provide more info.

Thanks.

So the system hangs when its trying to shut down iptables? No problems when starting up iptables? Sounds like a really odd problem.

Are you using iptables as a firewall?

Is your system really hanging or just waiting? Can you switch to a different virtual terminal?

If you do not have special rules and configuration defined for iptables, I would:

1) prevent the iptables from starting or stopping (remove it from init). You can use the 'chkconfig' command for this. 'chkconfig iptables off' should do the trick. I think Redhat also has the 'ntsysv' command that allows you to enable/disable services with a menu.

2) reboot. does your system still hang on shutdown even when iptables is off?

3) remove iptables (rpm -e iptables-xxx.xx) if you dont need it. re-install (rpm -e iptables -xxx.xx; rpm -ivh iptables-xxx.xx) it if you do.

Cynthia Blue, was your issue resolved??

Thanks for your help! No, my problem has not been resolved, but I haven't tried the suggestions yet. I haven't had to reboot and so have just avoided the problem.

However, this week I'm having SQL problems with my server, and so I'm considering setting up a new server with a new distro. I'm currently on RH8.

IPTables is my firewall in addition to the hardware router. I'm pretty sure it's hanging, I've waited upwards of 30 minutes and it still sat there, stuck.

I've always had a problem with the mySQL on this box, in that it never shut down correctly. I'm thinking it might be time to set up a new server and switch everything over. Now, to find a good distro...