[3621] in SIPB_Linux_Development
IMPORTANT: Read this or your kludgey-installed machine will wedge when it next reboots!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alex Coventry)
Wed Jan 23 23:21:17 2002
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 23:21:13 -0500
Message-Id: <200201240421.XAA32724@opus.mit.edu>
From: Alex Coventry <alex_c@MIT.EDU>
To: kludgey-linux-testers@MIT.EDU
Cc: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
Hi, everyone. I hope the kludgey installer has been working smoothly
for you. Unfortunately, the latest update to Athena breaks it. If you
haven't noticed any problems with it yet, please run the following
command as root NOW:
/sbin/tune2fs -j /dev/hdaX
where you should replace X with the number of your root partition. You
can determine X from the output of the "mount" command. For instance,
when I run "mount" on my system, I get the output
athena$ mount
/dev/hda1 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
/dev/hda6 on /usr/vice/cache type ext2 (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
AFS on /afs type afs (rw)
...and the line of output that has a "/" by itself says that the root
partition is on /dev/hda1. Thus I used the command "/sbin/tune2fs -j
/dev/hda1".
If your machine has fallen to this problem, it will halt during boot
after announcing a kernel panic. If that's the case, let me know, and
I'll arrange assistance for you. If you feel like having a go at this
yourself, follow the instructions at the end of this email.
My apologies for this error. In future, to prevent such an
incompatibility from wedging your machines, I'll try to test athena
updates on a kludgey-installed machine before they are widely released.
Alex.
How to fix a wedged kludgey machine:
Your main problem is going to be getting a shell from which you can run
the "tune2fs" command above. One way to do this is to boot from the
rescue disk you made during installation. At the "boot:" prompt, enter
"linux init=/bin/sh".
If you didn't make/can't find a rescue disk, you can use the disk image
in /mit/linux/rh-7.1/rescue.img. To create one, stick a blank floppy in
a linux-athena machine, add the linux locker and run
"dd bs=18k if=/mit/linux/rh-7.1/rescue.img of=/dev/fd0"
If you're not using a floppy made during installation, you'll need an
extra boot option: use "linux root=/dev/hdaX init=/bin/sh", where X is
the partition number I was talking about above. Since you won't have a
shell yet, you won't be able to use the "mount" command to determine X
in this case; instead you'll just have to iterate through the possible
values until you boot successfully. In unsuccessful cases, the boot
process will end with a kernel panic after the complaint "Warning:
unable to open initial console". In a successful case, you'll get a
shell prompt.
Once you have a shell prompt, you'll have to remount the root partition
so that it's writeable. Use the following command:
mount -o remount -o rw /dev/hdaX
replacing with the number of your root partition in the usual way.
Finally, run the tune2fs command:
/sbin/tune2fs -j /dev/hdaX
and reboot, and you should be all set.
Good luck!
