From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 6 13:56:24 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EBA26C9 for ; Thu, 6 Jun 2013 13:56:24 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ahamiltonwright@mta.ca) Received: from smtpy.mta.ca (smtpy.mta.ca [138.73.1.143]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2960F1319 for ; Thu, 6 Jun 2013 13:56:23 +0000 (UTC) Received: from host-29-237.mta.ca ([138.73.29.237]:60882) by smtpy.mta.ca with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.77) (envelope-from ) id 1UkaAL-0007bE-Pd for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:23:45 -0300 From: Andrew Hamilton-Wright Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Boot hangs in single-user mode Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2013 10:24:52 -0300 Message-Id: To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1085) X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1085) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:56:24 -0000 Strangely, it seems that I cannot boot single user, either using "boot = -s" from the boot loader, or using the boot menu. When I get to the = point where the root filesystem is mounted, it hangs right after = printing the message: Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ada0s1a Interestingly, there seems to be a bit of a sequence issue, as I have = also seen the mount message appear before the audio system comes up, so = occasionally, the last item printed is: pcm0: on uaudio0 If I boot normally, however, I can consistently reach a login prompt. I suspect that this may be a race condition of some kind, as yesterday I = am sure I successfully booted to single-user while trying to solve a = separate problem. In case the separate problem (failed disk) is relevant, the general = situation is this: - four disk machine: ada0 (/, /usr, /tmp, /var); ada1 (/research -- = data only), ada2 (/home), ada3 (/data -- also data only) - the disk ada2 has failed - in preparing to replace ada2, I have commented out all references to = it from /etc/fstab I am rebooting the machine at the moment as I wish to ensure that I know = which physical disk is ada2, so want to boot the machine without it = plugged in. I seem to have trouble booting at all with ada2 missing and = ada3 still attached, but can boot to multiuser with no problems in = either of these two configuration: - all disks (including the faulty one) plugged in, with ada2 references = removed from /etc/fstab - ada2 and ada3 not physically plugged in, and all references to either = removed from /etc/fstab Neither combination allows me to boot single-user. While I can clearly go ahead with my disk replacement, this is not only = strange and annoying, but potentially problematic. Has anyone else seen anything like this? I notice that there are = several messages (dating back to 2004) in the list indicating 'hang = after "Trying to mount root"' or 'hang after sbin_init' (which is the = message that will be seen when booting single-user in "verbose mode"). Thoughts? Ideas? Thanks, Andrew.