Do I have to re-boot?

[TrevorH]

As we went through at the time, running a DNS server is a job for professionals. I've been doing this since 1996 and I wouldn't run my own public DNS server. It's just too difficult. Leave it to the professionals like EasyDNS/DNSSimple/etc since they know what they are doing, have exceptionally easy to navigate web management pages, multiple servers on different subnets designed to withstand DDoS attacks etc.

[CharmingNathan]

Thanks TrevorH, I shall bear that in mind, especially as I am about to re-organise the way the system is configured here with a view to a complete upgrade.

[CharmingNathan]

To update you on the progress of this issue, I have at last, been forced to re-boot, so the answer to my original question was YES!

However, all is not well with the server, and I have been obliged to power it off for the first time this year, as during the boot process when one sees "CentOS" on the splash screen, I see a dialogue box come up with the following message: "Could not update: ICEAuthority File" var/lib/gdm/.ICEauthority. Despite seeing an active mouse circle on the screen, it would appear I have no keyboard or mouse control at this point.

Oh and one other thing, while in Single User Mode, I did a directory listing to establish the permissions and against the gdm directory, where presumably there should have been an "x" there was a letter "t" for the 'other' group permissions!?

Having done some research on this, albeit most posts are from the Ubuntu Forms, the suggestions have been to chown .ICEauthority over from root to owner, chown the entire gdm directory from root to owner, and to delete the entire gdm directory.

With the exception of the delete option, I have tried the first two, and these made no difference at all. I thought I would ask this forum before deleting an entire directory.

Perhaps the question should be changed from "Do I have to re-boot" to "Do I have to wipe the Hard Disk?

I hope not...and that there is a workaround for this issue...

EDIT: I have tried one or two more possible solutions to this and they have had no affect. I now have full access to .iCEauthority for all users, and both .ICEauthority under my own username and under /var/lib/gdm have both been chowned to my own and root user with no difference whatsoever.

I have also discovered that I am unable to start the D.N.S. service (service named start just returns a fail), and on exiting from the console "HAL" fails. Whereas I can start ssh service, I cannot ssh in from my own P.C. (which also runs CentOS 6) under either root or my own name. I just get a connection timed out message.

These actions cover most, if not all, of the suggestions I have seen on this and other Forums, EXCEPT deleting .ICEauthority from under my own profile and deleting it from gdm too.

I am really stuck here, so I would appreciate any suggestions.

Many thanks.

[CharmingNathan]

To further update this post, if anyone is interested and feel they can help...

I have now deleted .ICEauthority from the root, home/user, and var/lib/gdm and this has made no difference to the error message "Could not update ICEAuthority file" during boot up at all.

Having researched extensively online, after the deletion, and the other fixes I have tried, there seems to be no other options available - or are there?

I can't ssh from my own P.C., which at present, also runs CentOS, however I have managed to gain access to the logs in the var directory, and the message file has a LOT of errors: 1. Unable to open .pangorc which doesn't appear to exist in var/lib/gdm directory 2. rpdbind is faililng 3. HAL daemon is failing to start.

There are others, but they seem to be the repeated issues.

Suggestions please?