Mounting proc filesystem: [FAILED]

[weifan]

I have RH9 new installation for one week. This morning I used X-windows to add mysql service. After I added this service and tried to start it, it didn't let me start the process. I thought the system was messed up and tried to restart the system. However, after reboot the system, I got the error message:

Welcome to /ect/rc.d/rc.sysinit:line 70
35 segmentation fault LC_ALL=C grep -q "Red Hat" /etc/redhat_release Red Hat Linux press "I" to enter interactive startup
Mounting proc filesystem: [FAIL]

What can I do to bring my linux back?

TIA

Roger

 

[lullysing]

When you start getting segmentation faults, something is acting funky alright. the /proc filesystem is important to linux because it stores all kinds of information on all the processes in your system. If proc dies, you are probably in it deep.

Run FSCK on the system. NOw.
Check if the hard drive is busted.
Run a Memcheck.

That's all i can think of right now. Usually, when it gets to the point of segfaults, only deep wizardry can get you back. Unfortunatly, i am not proficient with enough incantations to help you further.

 

[weifan]

Thank you for your reply.

I tried fsck and got the message as following:

fsck 1.32 (09-Nov-2002)
Couldn't open /proc/partitions: No such file or directory.
Is /proc mounted?

Then, I tried "mount" command and got "Segmentation fault".

Does anyone please tell me how to fax the problem before I re-install whole system.

TIA

Roger

 

[lullysing]

You HAVE to mount the /proc filesystem : without it, you are quite ... well.... "fscked over".

I would say, try to mount /proc directly.
Try to boot the machine in single user mode. See if /proc will be mounted.
If it doesn't work, REBOOT with emergency floppy and CD.


Seg faults mean something somewhere is very busted. Worse comes to worse, get every file you need from the box and reinstall it. This is also the reason a lot of admins prefer having 2 HDs: one for the OS, one with all the data.


--dave

 

[ady2k]

Can you remove/disable that service?
And reboot your linux. Any error message come out again ?
I want to make sure your problem caused by that service or not.Good Luck....

 

[weifan]

Thank you guys!

dave:
The system won't let me mount and it gave me the error message "segmentation fault".

I searched the net and one guy mentioned that could be the problem with /etc/fatab. Anyone knows how to do it?

ady2k:
Did you mean the service or the hardware problem?

Roger

 

[lullysing]

The name of the file is /etc/ftab . If you can access it, paste it here.

Did you try booting the machine into single user mode ( or doing init 1 to switch ?). Can you do anything in single user mode?

 

[lullysing]

oups, /etc/fstab . Here's the man file.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FSTAB(5) Linux Programmer's Manual FSTAB(5)

NAME
fstab - static information about the filesystems

SYNOPSIS
#include <fstab.h>

DESCRIPTION
The file fstab contains descriptive information about the
various file systems. fstab is only read by programs, and
not written; it is the duty of the system administrator to
properly create and maintain this file. Each filesystem
is described on a separate line; fields on each line are
separated by tabs or spaces. The order of records in
fstab is important because fsck(8), mount(8), and
umount(8) sequentially iterate through fstab doing their
thing.

The first field, (fs_spec), describes the block special
device or remote filesystem to be mounted.

For ordinary mounts it will hold (a link to) a block spe-
cial device node (as created by mknod(8)) for the device
to be mounted, like `/dev/cdrom' or `/dev/sdb7'. For NFS
mounts one will have <host>:<dir>, e.g., `knuth.aeb.nl:/'.
For procfs, use `proc'.

Instead of giving the device explicitly, one may indicate
the (ext2 or xfs) filesystem that is to be mounted by its
UUID or volume label (cf. e2label(8) or xfs_admin(8)),
writing LABEL=<label> or UUID=<uuid>, e.g., `LABEL=Boot'
or `UUID=3e6be9de-8139-11d1-9106-a43f08d823a6'. This will
make the system more robust: adding or removing a SCSI
disk changes the disk device name but not the filesystem
volume label.

The second field, (fs_file), describes the mount point for
the filesystem. For swap partitions, this field should be
specified as `none'. If the name of the mount point con-
tains spaces these can be escaped as `\040'.

The third field, (fs_vfstype), describes the type of the
filesystem. The system currently supports these types of
filesystems (and possibly others - consult /proc/filesys-
tems):

minix a local filesystem, supporting filenames of length
14 or 30 characters.

ext a local filesystem with longer filenames and larger
inodes. This filesystem has been replaced by the
ext2 file system, and should no longer be used.

ext2 a local filesystem with longer filenames, larger
inodes, and lots of other features.

xiafs a local filesystem with longer filenames, larger
inodes, and lots of other features.

xfs a local filesystem with journaling, scalability and
lots of other features.

msdos a local filesystem for MS-DOS partitions.

hpfs a local filesystem for HPFS partitions.

iso9660
a local filesystem used for CD-ROM drives.

nfs a filesystem for mounting partitions from remote
systems.

swap a disk partition to be used for swapping.

If fs_vfstype is specified as ``ignore'' the entry is
ignored. This is useful to show disk partitions which are
currently unused.

The fourth field, (fs_mntops), describes the mount options
associated with the filesystem.

It is formatted as a comma separated list of options. It
contains at least the type of mount plus any additional
options appropriate to the filesystem type. For documen-
tation on the available options for non-nfs file systems,
see mount(8). For documentation on all nfs-specific
options have a look at nfs(5). Common for all types of
file system are the options ``noauto'' (do not mount when
&quot;mount -a&quot; is given, e.g., at boot time), ``user'' (allow
a user to mount), and ``owner'' (allow device owner to
mount), and ``_netdev'' (device requires network to be
available). The ``owner'' and ``_netdev'' options are
Linux-specific. For more details, see mount(8).

The fifth field, (fs_freq), is used for these filesystems
by the dump(8) command to determine which filesystems need
to be dumped. If the fifth field is not present, a value
of zero is returned and dump will assume that the filesys-
tem does not need to be dumped.

The sixth field, (fs_passno), is used by the fsck(8) pro-
gram to determine the order in which filesystem checks are
done at reboot time. The root filesystem should be speci-
fied with a fs_passno of 1, and other filesystems should
have a fs_passno of 2. Filesystems within a drive will be
checked sequentially, but filesystems on different drives
will be checked at the same time to utilize parallelism
available in the hardware. If the sixth field is not pre-
sent or zero, a value of zero is returned and fsck will
assume that the filesystem does not need to be checked.

The proper way to read records from fstab is to use the
routines getmntent(3).

FILES
/etc/fstab The file fstab resides in /etc.

BUGS
The documentation in mount(8) is often more up-to-date.

SEE ALSO
getmntent(3), mount(8), swapon(8), fs(5) nfs(5)

HISTORY
The fstab file format appeared in 4.0BSD.

Linux 2.2 15 June 1999 FSTAB(5)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 1994 Man-cgi 1.15, Panagiotis Christias <christia@theseas.ntua.gr>

 

[weifan]

dave,

/etc/fstab
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=60 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 /swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9600 noauto,owner.. 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner.. 0 0

 

[weifan]

dave,

Yes, I can boot the machine with single. That is the way I can read the fstab file.

However, it won't let me mount anything. I have to hand copy the file.


Roger

 

[ady2k]

I meant the service.

 

[weifan]

ady2k,

Thanks.

I may try it later. Let me figure out the other stuff first.


Roger

 

[lullysing]

ok, in which runlevel does your machine boot usually ? runlevel 3? runlevel 5 ( with GUI) ?

When you booted in single, did /proc get mounted properly, or it failed too ? I can't check your version of fstab against mone yet, i will be able around 11pm eastern (no linux machine here at work to compare to ).

The reason i ask about the runlevels is simple : the runlevel determines which deamons are loaded, and if it's oine thing in perticular that's making your whole machine unstable, we might eb able to isolate the service by checking if it's runlevel related.

 

[weifan]

dave,

It sounds getting more complicated to me now...

I think this must be something with adding mysql service. This system had been running for several days without any problem until yesterday morning I tried to add mysql service. The system won't let me start the service and I determined to restart whole system and the problem occured.

I think I will re-install the whole system and see what will happen.

Thank you for your help.

Roger