NEXTSTEP

Title: Hangs Mounting Filesystems During Boot
Entry Number: 1912
Last Updated: <<Date June 17, 1997>>

Keywords: boot, default, mount, mounting, autonfsmount

Overview

Sometimes a machine that was working fine may hang during boot at the message "autonfsmount" (Or "Mounting Remote Filesystems" in graphical mode).  You can tell exactly where the machine is hanging by entering the "-v" option at the boot: prompt.

The reasons for this may be:
the network information may have been configured incorrectly
the machine has been configured properly for a network, but is currently not on the network
you may have booted with the "config=Default" option which effectively takes you off the network because the default configuration does not include a network driver.

Solution

Your machine will eventually boot after a very long series of timeouts, but you can overcome this by resetting the machine's network configuration information to a default state.

The best way to do this is to boot in single user mode and replace the file /etc/hostconfig with the default one included with the system.  See the section "Simple Netinfo Problems" in NeXTanswer 1470_Tech_Support_Frequently_Asked_Questions.rtf for details on how to replace the /etc/hostconfig file.  It is strongly suggested that you back up the existing one by copying to another name.  This way, if you connect the machine back onto the network, all you have to do is restore the old /etc/hostconfig file.