By the way in the meantime here are the contents of /etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 85.119.82.201
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        gateway 85.119.82.1

-John

On 6Jul 2014, at 01:24, Andy Smith <andy@bitfolk.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jul 06, 2014 at 12:06:48AM +0200, John Morgan Salomon wrote:
Hi Andy,

here’s the rub - I also thought networking had started, but I’m getting sendmail errors about “could not find any active network interfaces” on console after letting it stew for a while.  Iptables is disabled.

Hmm, possible then that there is a syntax error in
/etc/network/interfaces or something of that nature.

As mentioned - I _am_ getting console messages - just up to the point where some of those S03 services start, then only the occasional error messages.

But if you don't have a login prompt on the console then the console
isn't working. It could be that it never completes the boot, but
later on you say your inittab has no "co" line so you definitely
don't have a working console (insofar as it letting you log in
there).

the info you asked for:

ganesha:/# grep ^co /etc/inittab
ganesha:/#

This indicates lack of a getty running on the console device which
is why you get no login prompt I expect.

Here's what an /etc/inittab file looks like on one of my wheezy VMs,
with comments stripped out:

$ egrep -v '^(#|$)' /etc/inittab
id:2:initdefault:
si::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS
~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
l0:0:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 6
z6:6:respawn:/sbin/sulogin
ca:12345:ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t1 -a -r now
pf::powerwait:/etc/init.d/powerfail start
pn::powerfailnow:/etc/init.d/powerfail now
po::powerokwait:/etc/init.d/powerfail stop
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6
co:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty --noclear hvc0 9600 linux

Notice the "co" line; you don't have one, probably why no "login:"
prompt. If you add one like mine¹ and then:

# telinit q

to restart init, a login prompt should appear on the console.

I’ve attached the output of dmesg, bootlog, and syslog (I cleared these before rebooting so they should only show a “bad” boot and the subsequent boot into single user mode after I destroy the instance from console)

The actual output on the console would be more interesting. You can
just copy and paste it into a paste bin, e.g. pastie.org. Usual GNU
Screen commands will allow you to scroll all the way back up, e.g.
ctrl-a [ to enter copy mode, pg up then to scroll up through it, pg
dn and finally escape to get out of that.

The content of /etc/network/interfaces might be good as well while
we are here.

Cheers,
Andy

¹ Stock Debian wheezy doesn't have the --noclear flag; I add this to
 mine to prevent the boot messages being cleared off the console
 when the login prompt appears.

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