[Clfs-support] Cannot login on serial port (embedded ARM, busybox)

[Lance Jump]

I cannot login into the embedded system to work. I am using the serial port
for login. When the system boots, I get a login prompt to which I enter the
user (root -- there is currently no password for root). The system reports:

Jan 1 12:53:27 login[595]: root login on 'ttyS0'

But then immediately returns to the login prompt. Here is the output near
the end of the boot and after I try to log inL

Here is the output at the end of the boot when I try to log in:

##################################
md: ... autorun DONE.
eth0: link up, 100 Mb/s, full duplex, flow control disabled
VFS: Mounted root (nfs filesystem) on device 0:13.
Freeing init memory: 156K
init started: BusyBox v1.18.4 (2011-10-07 23:48:57 GMT)

DB88FXX81 login: root
Jan  1 13:06:09 login[595]: root login on 'ttyS0'

DB88FXX81 login:
######################################

The problem appears to be that the busybox shell never seems to run.
Messages inserted in the /etc/init.d/startup or /etc/profile never print. If
I use commands other than getty in inittab (e.g., ls) they appear to
execute.

I have built the system using CLFS Embedded GIT-0.0.1-20110514. I am
building in a chroot environment of LFS live 6.3 inside a Ubuntu 10.04 32bit
x86 bit host. The embedded system is ARM (Marvell Kirkwood OpenRD Client).

Everything builds fine and produces a kernel and RFS.  I am using the RFS
via an NFS mount.  My inittab looks like:

#######################################
# /etc/inittab

::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/startup

tty1::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
tty2::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
tty3::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
tty4::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
tty5::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
tty6::respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6

# Put a getty on the serial line (for a terminal)
# uncomment this line if your using a serial console
::askfirst:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 115200 vt100

::shutdown:/etc/rc.d/shutdown
::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/reboot
#########################################

I cannot login anywhere else either because I have not set up network
services for that (and was not planning to for while).

Using a /bin/mount command in place of the getty command, I have found that
fstab files have not mounted (including /proc, /sys, /dev/pts).  This is
supposed to be done by the startup script, but I don't think it is executing
since messages from it do not appear (including ones that I log to
/var/log).  If I replace the "::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/startup" with
"::sysinit:/bin/busybox mount -a" then the file systems are mounted (but I
still can't log in).

I have been struggling with this for many hours. Any suggestions would be
welcome.

Thanks,

Lance
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