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Date:      Thu, 19 Oct 2000 00:22:21 -0400
From:      "Brian F. Feldman" <green@FreeBSD.org>
To:        "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net>
Cc:        Siegbert Baude <siegbert.baude@gmx.de>, questions@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: Help, I can't boot FreeBSD anymore 
Message-ID:  <200010190422.e9J4MM509024@green.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: Message from "G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net>  of "Wed, 18 Oct 2000 20:50:19 CDT." <3.0.6.32.20001018205019.00853560@mail85.pair.com> 

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"G. Adam Stanislav" <adam@whizkidtech.net> wrote:
> Thank you. The problem seems solved <whew>, though I'm not quite sure w=
hy.
> I decided to boot again, and went to read a book for a while.
> =

> When I came back, the system was finally booted, but acted eratic. df
> claimed my 8 Gig drive was 108% full. I deleted entire directories, but=
 df
> kept reporting the same. I ran MAKEDEV all. It recreated /dev/null, tha=
nk
> goodness, before it failed for lack of disk space. The hard disk LED wa=
s
> just churning (or rather the disk was, the LED was blinking like crazy)=
=2E

I think your /var/run/utmp might have been unhappy.

rc:             (cd /var/run && cp /dev/null utmp && chmod 644 utmp;)

If /dev/null is really /dev/zero.... ;)

> I typed "reboot". After a long period of disk syncing, the system did
> reboot, though it said / was not dismounted properly (that would be the=
 8
> Gig drive). However, it booted fairly quickly, df reported the big driv=
e
> was 21% full, and everything was fine and dandy. Also /dev/null seems
> working right. I tried the same as before (tags 9999999 > /dev/null), a=
nd
> it worked as it was supposed to.

Hm.  I wonder why it couldn't unmount correctly.

> So, I can go back to programming again. I am not sure what the heck
> happened (or for that matter how my /dev/null turned into a file), but =
as
> long as everything is working I'm happy. :)

Lots of things running as root might have accidentally unlink(2)ed it.  I=
'd =

probably try to find out which one did so it can't happen again.

> Thanks for your help,
> =

> Adam
> =

> At 02:27 19-10-2000 +0200, Siegbert Baude wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >> To my surprise, null was actually a huge file filled with tabs. I de=
leted
> >> it (rm null), then I did ln -s zero null.
> >
> >I think that induced your problem. /dev/zero and /dev/null aren=B4t id=
entical.
> >>From /dev/MAKEDEV
> >
> >mknod null      c 2 2;                  chmod 666 null =

> >mknod zero      c 2 12;                 chmod 666 zero =

> >
> >Sorry, but I don=B4t know, where in the boot process you would need
> /dev/null the
> >first time, so I don=B4t know, where your boot hangs. I suggest to use=
 a fixit
> >floppy, mount / && cd /dev && ./MAKEDEV null

I'd prefer rc(1) called "echo -n >utmp" instead of "cp /dev/null utmp" :-=
/

--
 Brian Fundakowski Feldman           \  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve!  /
 green@FreeBSD.org                    `------------------------------'




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