Booting to rescue mode, but no /mnt/sysimage
Kenneth Holter
For recovery testing purposes issued "rm -fr /" on my Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5 server, and tried to boot into rescue mode to see
if I could recover from this sort of failure. I'm running NetWorker
backup software to preform recovery of files.
But when booting into recovery mode, however, there is no "/mnt/
sysimage" folder, as described in Red Hat's documentation. But there
is an "/mnt/runtime" folder that seems to contain the remaining files
on the hard drive.
How come there is no "/mnt/sysimage", and what is "/mnt/runtime"? How
can I access the files in a write-enabled mode so that I can perform
full recovery?
Regards,
Kenneth Holter
Matt Giwer
I suggest the /mnt/runtime is only the files on the rescue disk. After erasing
the system one does not expect to find it. That is sort of what rm is good at.
The only other possibility is that the kernel crashed before rm could complete
its work. If it was an ext3 filesystem it would likely crash on a journal commit.
As for myself, I really have no interest in testing my suggestions nor in
trying to duplicate your experiment. I might go so far as to say no one in his
right mind expects to rescue a system deliberately destroyed this way. It is no
the sort of thing one designs for.
--
Anyone proposing a carbon tax is just trying to increase taxes unless he
says which taxes he will reduce to keep the tax revenue neutral.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3928
http://www.giwersworld.org/israel/bombings.phtml a5
Nico Kadel-Garcia
You mean no /mnt/sysimage in the rescue OS? Did you let it go hunting for
Linux installations to mount them? If you did, I suspect it failed to find
enough to identify the OS as a Linux OS or to find the "/etc/fstab" from the
old OS to mount hte partitions.
This is partly why I like to use "labeled" ext3 partitions, to tell me where
they were supposed to be mounted.
Kenneth Holter
Thank you for your input.
But maybe I didn't make myself too clear on what I'm aiming at. :)
I need to figure out how badly a system can be damaged before I have
to perform a fresh OS install (with recovery of necessary files). If I
can recover from a failure by booting into rescue mode and running the
recovery software, I probably should consider that solution before
going for the fresh OS install option.
And I was not sure of how much of the OS installation the rescue CD
would require to be able to mount it in order for me to run recovery
on it.
Kenneth Holter
>
> - Vis sitert tekst -
I did let the rescue OS go hunting for Linux installation, but it was
unsuccessful. So instead of getting the expected /mnt/sysimage (which
I got earlier, before I thrashed the installasjon) I got /mnt/runtime.
I agree with mr. Giwer (the post before yours) that /mnt/runtime seems
to be the files found on the CD.
Do you known which files on the Linux installation is required for
rescue mode to mount the it? In other words: Which files are important
enough so that if these files are lost I have to do a fresh install?
Spamless
> I did let the rescue OS go hunting for Linux installation, but it was
> unsuccessful. So instead of getting the expected /mnt/sysimage (which
> I got earlier, before I thrashed the installasjon) I got /mnt/runtime.
> I agree with mr. Giwer (the post before yours) that /mnt/runtime seems
> to be the files found on the CD.
>
> Do you known which files on the Linux installation is required for
> rescue mode to mount the it? In other words: Which files are important
> enough so that if these files are lost I have to do a fresh install?
Why worry about rescue mode finding the partition? Why not mount it
manually? (one time I had created a directory with some files I wanted
to put in / - so I had to be root and meant to type
mv mydir/* /
That's what I told my fingers to type. Naughty fingers.
mv /* mydir
No /usr/bin any more! (of course I did have mydir/usr).
No /root! No /lost+found.
Rescue mode could not find an installed Linux (home version,
at that time RH7.2).
So, I booted with Knoppix, mounted things and moved them back
where they belonged.