Everything seems in place, but no succcess. Wiped-out coda-server,
re-installed venus from coda-client_5.3.7-2_i386.deb, loaded coda.o, 
issued "venus-setup testserver.coda.cs.cmu.edu 50000",
/etc/services is perfect, portmap is working, and cmon 
shows that testserver.coda.cs.cmu.edu is alive, and there is now
no firewall in between. Will welcome any suggestions.

Numerous difficulties were encountered while running my own server, so shall
use the testserver first. (In particular: auth2.log did not exit on the
anywhere on disk, and  startserver always begun it detected a CRASH
file in /vice/srv - even after a clean install, and /vic/srv/Srv.Err was 
reporting that it could not find key 2 ).

Now back to venus, after a clean install:

# /etc/init.d/coda-server start
[...]
11:00:23 /var/lib/coda/LOG setup for size 0x288477
11:00:23 /var/lib/coda/DATA initialized at size 0xa211dc
11:00:23 brain-wiping recoverable store
11:00:25 loading recoverable store
11:00:25 starting VSGDB scan
11:00:25        0 vsg entries in table
11:00:25        0 vsg entries on free-list
11:00:25 starting VDB scan
11:00:25        1 vol entries in table (0 MLEs)
11:00:25        0 vol entries on free-list (0 MLEs)
11:00:26 starting FSDB scan (4166, 100000) (25, 75, 4)
11:00:26        0 cache files in table (0 blocks)
11:00:26        4166 cache files on free-list
11:00:27 starting HDB scan
11:00:27        0 hdb entries in table
11:00:27        0 hdb entries on free-list
11:00:27 Kernel version ioctl failed (Inappropriate ioctl for device)!
11:00:27 Initial LRDB allocation
11:00:27 Getting Root Volume information...
11:00:29 Venus starting...
coda_read_super: rootfid is (0x7f000002,0x1,0x1)
coda_downcall: opcode 30, no sb!
Failure of coda_cnode_make for root: error -6

# tail /var/log/coda/venus.log
[ X(00) : 0000 : 11:00:27 ] EndRvmFlush
[ X(00) : 0000 : 11:00:27 ] BeginRvmTruncate (1, 16972, F)
[ X(00) : 0000 : 11:00:27 ] cache::EndRvmTruncate
[ X(00) : 0000 : 11:00:27 ] E adviceserver::adviceserver: AdviceServer

[ A(18) : 0000 : 11:00:27 ] adviceserver::main()

[ H(07) : 0000 : 11:00:27 ] HDBDaemon about to sleep on hdbdaemon_sync

[ X(00) : 0000 : 11:00:29 ] *** Long Running NewConnectFS: code = 0, elapsed = 1069.6 ***
#
-- 

Ioannis Tambouras
Signed pgp-key on key server.
PGP encrypted mail preferred.
ioannis_at_flinet.com, West Palm Beach, Florida