The original problem:
Unable to login as single-user (boot -s) on my two
solaris 2.5 machines.
Multi-user and root access are normal.
Solutions attempted:
sys-unconfig -- didn't help
/etc/ioctl.syscon -- file ok
/sbin/sulogin -- file ok
/sbin/su -- file ok
reinstall OS -- worked for the reason given below
Solution (provided by Joe, jfu@enron.com):
For an unknown reason the /etc/autopush (softlinked to
/sbin/autopush) had its permission set to 660 and should
have been an executable 770.
As a last resort I reinstalled the OS on one of the
machines, which cured the problem. Then I got the mail
from Joe pointing me to the autopush file. Sure enough,
the permissions had been changed. I changed the permissions
on the second machine (without reinstalling the OS) and it
boots single-user just fine.
Thanks for all the help.
EJO