[tlug] init cannot write to /dev/initctl

[Michael Doughty <Doughty_Michael@example.com>]

Ok.  I have a remote box that is hosed, and no one is near it right now
to do a hard reboot, which I fear is necessary.
When I try a shutdown I get:
init: timeout opening/writing control channel /dev/initctl
and the shutdown aborts.  Google had nothing useful to say on the subject
other than the fact that someone else had the problem too.  

Got dumb/creative and decided that the problem was something to do with 
the fact that it was fifo.  So I blew the file away, created another
via touch, and reran my shutdown command.  Didn't help.  I ended up 
with a file full of the stuff that telinit sends to init, but this 
really didn't help me.  Hell, I even took this data and cat'ed it right
into /dev/initctl after I brought it back to a fifo, but that didn't do
anything either.  So, yeah, I am clueless, and don't have a copy of the
source code for init in front of me.  So while I go hunt for that, 
anyone want to throw out some suggestions as to what I should do/have 
done?

Michael