Hi

First, I have no idea what any of this linux stuff means, so excuse me if I use the wrong terms .....

I have my usb adsl runnin through a Smoothwall server. It works really great and I'm very pleased with it. I really do not want to go any further with this setup, i.e. install anything else, as it suits my needs perfectly and I just don't have the time to mess about with anything more complex than it is already Anyway ..... I know the idea is to leave the server on all the time, but it just isnt practical for me for various reasons, so I switch it off during the day. I don't have a seperate monitor plugged into it, its simply the pc, with a keyboard. Occasionally I will plug my other pc's monitor into it (they sit next to each other) to check stuff.
My problem ........

Whenever I boot the smoothwall server up, it goes through all the usual stuff, but when it gets to 'Setting up HTTPD', it just sits there. If I press reboot at this point, it always goes all the way through the bootup the second time around, but GAH IT'S A REAL PAIN IN THE AR53! Why is it stopping at 'Setting up HTTPD' every time? It would really save me an awful lot of hassle plugging cables in and out to check whats goin on if I could just fix whatever it is thats stop the bootup from completing!

Help me please!
Thanks

Ch@m

Sorry, another question ........ maybe related!?!?!?

Is it OK to just turn it off with the power button?
I tried that SHUTDOWN NOW command, but it did some stuff, whird a bit, but never actually switched off. Every reboot it says summin like 'HD0 not unmounted properly' and does something which looks equivelant to windows scandisk.

Thanks

sounds like thats the excact problem is hitting the power switch to shut it off. I'm not sure the excact specifics but when you do that, the OS doesn't unmount the partition, and when it boots up after that its expecting to find an unmounted partition but there isn't one so it has to repair itself and occasionally causes problems. Now when you shut down you need to do the command:
shutdown -h now
the -h is for halt. Thinking about it actually your distro may not need the -h (but hey its good for practice). I also don't think the system will actually power off, it will just quit everything its doing and say
System Halted
Now its safe to press the power button to turn it off.

I'm not positive but i think its pretty safe to say that that's where your httpd problem is coming from. Also if you want to not have to switch your monitor all the time, you can set up telnet or SSH, though it may take some work to get it secure. Another option is getting a KVM which you can find for around $50 for a 2 port one, in which case you could get rid of one of your keyboards and mouse and just use the same Keyboard, Video Monitor, and Mouse (KVM) for both computers with just the push of a button, or you could go with just a monitor switch which run a little cheaper but only support the switching of the monitor.

Ah, thank you very much. Smoothwall users a web based interface on the client pc's and includes some java applet thingy which emulates the console on the server. I guess I could issue the shutdown -h now command from there! As you can see, I'm a bit of a novice. Ill give that a go though! Thank you again.

I tried shutting it down with shutdown -h now
I also shut it down with the newly found SHUTDOWN button on the web interface
trouble is ......... it STILL halts at every bootup at 'Setting up httpd', until I reset the pc and then it works the second time. gggrrrrrrr
Anything else it could be?

Well, i suppose it could be a security precausion... that way if someone puts some malicous code in your firewall and try's to reboot in order to execute the code, it'll stop loading until someone comes over and physically resets it (just a guess). Either way if you don't want it, you could post your httpd.conf here and we'll take a look as it sounds like there may be something in there thats doing it. If you don't know where its at do a:
find / -name httpd.conf -print
and that should show you where its at (you may need to be root).

other than that theres not much else I could help you with.