From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Oct 5 10:43:50 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA01497 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 5 Oct 1997 10:43:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell.futuresouth.com (shell.futuresouth.com [207.141.254.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA01492 for ; Sun, 5 Oct 1997 10:43:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (fullermd@localhost) by shell.futuresouth.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA05089; Sun, 5 Oct 1997 12:43:43 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 12:43:43 -0500 (CDT) From: "Matthew D. Fuller" To: Jon Saenz cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: read-only root filesystem... = disaster? In-Reply-To: <19971005111731334.AAA201@jon> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk 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!! *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | FreeBSD; the way computers were meant to be | * FreeBSD: turning PCs into workstations * | Windows: turning workstations into typewriters | * fullermd@futuresouth.com :-} MAtthew Fuller * | http://keystone.westminster.edu/~fullermd | *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*