Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 12:43:43 -0500 (CDT) From: "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@shell.futuresouth.com> To: Jon Saenz <jsaenz@netflow.es> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: read-only root filesystem... = disaster? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971005123514.4930B-100000@shell.futuresouth.com> In-Reply-To: <19971005111731334.AAA201@jon>
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On Sun, 5 Oct 1997, Jon Saenz wrote:
> Hello, there.
>
> My root filesystem filled up yesterday {or | and } I had some problems with
> permissions in /dev directory when trying to make my ZIP disk available to
> all users to mount and unmount it. I don't exactly know which is the cause
> of the problem, but my system (FreeBSD 2.2.2) doesn't boot now.
>
> After trying some solutions like mounting a minimal 2.2.1 distribution in a
> SCSI ZIP disc, removing the extra space in the root filesystem, making a
> Custom installation and Commiting the disklabels/distributions to the hard
> disk (extracting just a XF86 server which I don't need for my hardware) and
> some other actions, I have reached to the following status.
> a) My system refuses to boot.
> b) I only have the 2.2.1 CD-ROM distribution, because the 2.2.2 CD-ROM
> distribution was not mine :-(.
.....
> fstab: /etc/fstab:0: Permission denied. # Here start the problems... #
> mount can't find fstab entry for /. # /etc/fstab HAS a / entry! I can cat
> /etc/fstab and it is there!#
> Filesystem mount failed, startup aborted
> Enter pathname of shell or RETURN for sh:
>
> When typing RETURN, sh starts and when I type df, I get the following
> answer:
>
> Filesystem 512-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
> root_device 67742 25762 36562 41% /
>
> I am NOT allowed to:
> 1. edit files
> 2. sh MAKEDEV
> 3. mounting other disks
> 4. writing disklabel files to root filesystem
> nor .... writing any single bit to the disk, because the answer is always
> the same:
Well, you can try checking the permissions on /etc/fstab; they could be
set to, say, mode 000, and you could still cat it as root. The filesystem
will of course be mounted read-only, because it's not set as clean.
You'll need to fsck /, then mount / to get it read/write; then you can do
all that stuff. If that fails, then you might have to do what I did a
week ago; I could no longer access my / partition because of a few
complications of my BIOS resetting, and I wanted to save as much as I
could. I have a 100 MB /, 128 MB swap, and ~800 MB /usr on my first disk,
and 128 MB swap, ~1900 MB /home on my second disk. I did a install of bin
and DES, over PPP, and I told it that the only thing it could use was what
used to be my /; don't even TOUCH the partition entriess for the other
partitions. Did the install, booted up, checked to make sure I could
remount my old /usr and /home (on /mnt/{usr|home}), edited my /etc/fstab
file to include them, and Voila! It's working so far, and I don't see why
this mightn't help you at least a bit. Now, if you want to recover files
in your / partition... Try the fsck'ing, check the permissions, and
pray.
> Is there any possibility to recover these files under the previously quoted
> constraints? Which?
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> ***************************************************************
> * Jon Saenz |jsaenz@netflow.es *
> * Barrio de la Cruz 5, 3D |jsaenz@lcpxbi.wm.lc.ehu.es *
> * 48006 - Bilbao |wdpsaagj@lg.ehu.es *
> ***************************************************************
Hope it helps!!
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| FreeBSD; the way computers were meant to be |
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* fullermd@futuresouth.com :-} MAtthew Fuller *
| http://keystone.westminster.edu/~fullermd |
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