Hi,
I noticed this too, and I think I tracked it down - it seems to hang
in syslog() (root logins are logged). Perhaps the large number of
boot up messages confuses syslogd somehow (and /dev/log is a stream
socket, so I guess writes block if data is not read quickly enough).
It doesnt't seem to depend on verions of kernel/libc/syslogd (happens
on 1.2.13/4.6.27/1.2 as well as 1.3.100/5.2.18/1.3) except that
I think it didn't happen on one very old machine (syslogd <1.2?).
> This (mis)behavior also applies to the first suid root program run as a
> conventional user after login, if this helps.
Perhaps that program happens to use syslog() too, like su?
> I am running shadow passwords if that makes a difference. Sorry not be
That shouldn't make much difference except that shadow does more logging
and may make the problem show up more frequently.
Any ideas how to fix it?
Marek