possible partition error suse linux boot

mounted /dev/sda1 as /mnt and found file /etc/fstab this is what it says (omitting comments)


/dev/root / ext2 defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys /sysfs noauto defaults 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
firmware /lib/firmware tmpfs defaults 0 0 
microcode /usr/lib/microcode tmpfs defaults 0 0

The only “normal” mount is that of /dev/root on /. Together with your last post it seems that* /dev/root* is an alias of /dev/evms/lvm2/system/root (most probably one is a symlink of the other) when you system is running. It shows that also there the fs-type is ext2.

The only thing I wonder is where the mount of* /dev/sda1* on* /boot* is!

On 2010-10-21 13:06, davidm01 wrote:
>
> mounted /dev/sda1 as /mnt and found file /grub/menu.lst this is what it
> says (omitting comments)

> title SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3
> root (hd0,0)
> kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.16.60-0.54.5-smp root=/dev/evms/lvm2/system/root vga=0x31a resume=/dev/evms/lvm2/system/swap splash=silent showopts

Ok…!

Next step. Download an openSUSE live CD, any one you like. I suggested the 11.2 for gnome, because I
think the enterprise version defaults to gnome (so you will be more familiar there), and 11.2 has
less video problems than the latest version, 11.3.

Boot it.

Check to see if it enables “/dev/evms/*”, list those contents here. If we are very lucky, there will
be a “/dev/evms/lvm2/system/root”, which is the slice (dunno lvm parlance) to mount.

If that one can be mounted, run a “df -h”, and list the contents of its “/etc/fstab” file here.

If the LVM device does not appear, we need the advice of an LVM expert.
Lacking one, somebody has to find and read an LVM recovery howto…


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

On 2010-10-21 13:36, davidm01 wrote:
>
> mounted /dev/sda1 as /mnt and found file /etc/fstab this is what it says
> (omitting comments)

This does not make sense.

/dev/sda1 is not the root, but the boot filesystem. It should not contain an fstab file, and if it
does, it is useless.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

@Carlos, you are correct again. And that might be why the contents does not fit to the system as we know it so far.
@davidm01, are you sure you have the contents of /mnt/etc/fstab with /dev/sda1 mounted on /mnt?
when yes, could we ask for the output of

ls -l /mnt

with /dev/sda1 mounted there, or is that to much (remembering you must look/type instead of copy/paste everything)?

On 2010-10-21 14:06, hcvv wrote:
>
> The only “normal” mount is that of -/dev/root -on- /-. Together with
> your last post it seems that- /dev/root- is an alias of
> -/dev/evms/lvm2/system/root- (most probably one is a symlink of the
> other) when you system is running. It shows that also there the fs-type
> is -ext2-.
>
> The only thing I wonder is where the mount of- /dev/sda1- on- /boot-
> is!

Remember that what you see is a live (which one, I dunno). That ext2 can’t be the root filesystem,
but rather the /boot filesystem, which is normally made ext2. The real root filesystem is reiserfs
(I think). It will never be ext2, it is a modern suse release.

Things are confusing, I know, you have to do a lot of guesses.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

And a lot of imagination lol!
You are correct, I should think longer and more before I post in this thread, this is allready my second miss here IIRC.

please refer to post#22 Is that not it?

Yes, and no etc there.
Please davidm01, try to understand what we try to let you do and what you are doing. We are only interested in what is inside * /mnt* (and deeper) when* /dev/sda1 *is mounted there. All other things belong to your CD/DVD running live system and NOT to your broken system.

Again IMHO, the only thing we could do is getting the other “partitions” (or logical volumes or whatever) mounted to inspect them. But I doubt if the live systems used even create the needed device special files.

Have now created and booted from an opensuse linux CD
It shows and appears to be able to completely access the two drives /dev/sda1 (the linux ext2 boot system drive?) at 74Mb
and /dev/sda2 (the linux lvm2 drive?) at 11Gb
Neither drive appears to be full
On the lvm2 drive, I can see the mount point which are the novell drive, although the details cannot be seen (this is NSS formatted)
here is the content of a file called nrmdfinfo which is certainly what should be on this server


Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/evms/lvm2/system/root
reiserfs 10G 6.4G 3.7G 64% /
udev tmpfs 5.9G 248K 5.9G 1% /dev
/dev/evms/sda1
ext2 69M 11M 55M 16% /boot
/dev/evms/DATAPOOL
nsspool 666G 47G 619G 8% /opt/novell/nss/mnt/.pools/DATAPOOL
admin nssadmin 4.0M 0 4.0M 0% /_admin
JAG nssvol 666G 5.3G 619G 1% /media/nss/JAG
ARC nssvol 666G 40G 619G 7% /media/nss/ARC
SYS nssvol 666G 548K 619G 1% /media/nss/SYS
/dev/sr0 iso9660 659M 659M 0 100% /media/SU2SP2_001 

On the face of it, there is no apparent reason for the failure to boot with ‘drive is full’ messages. I can access pretty much what you might want to see.

Below I post a screenshot of the server as seen by GNU
http://www.jagspares.co.uk/image/screenshot.png

In the media folder, there is clear evidence of an incomplete backup created by the offending Acronis backup software.

Backup software often makes heavy use of /tmp files. Check in /tmp and see what is there. Remove all. This may relieve the full problem. Now the root of the problem is that 11 gig is very small for a root partition if you make heavy use of temp files. But fixing this is rather complex and you would need to resize or extend the root partition or move /tmp to a different partition or drive that has more room.

Sorry gogalthorp, the main problem here is that he can NOT access his file systems (apart from* /boot*) and that thus all advice how to clean up is futile until someone comes with an advice how to mount his file systems (managed by some voilume manager).

On 2010-10-21 17:06, davidm01 wrote:
>
> Have now created and booted from an opensuse linux CD

Good!

> It shows and appears to be able to completely access the two drives
> /dev/sda1 (the linux ext2 boot system drive?) at 74Mb
> and /dev/sda2 (the linux lvm2 drive?) at 11Gb

Ok.

> Neither drive appears to be full
> On the lvm2 drive, I can see the mount point which are the novell
> drive, although the details cannot be seen (this is NSS formatted)
> here is the content of a file called nrmdfinfo which is certainly what
> should be on this server
>
> Code:

I edit for clarity.

> --------------------
>
> Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
> /dev/evms/lvm2/system/root reiserfs 10G 6.4G 3.7G 64% /

This is the main system space.

> udev tmpfs 5.9G 248K 5.9G 1% /dev
> /dev/evms/sda1 ext2 69M 11M 55M 16% /boot

Boot again.

> /dev/evms/DATAPOOL nsspool 666G 47G 619G 8% /opt/novell/nss/mnt/.pools/DATAPOOL

This must be the netware space.

admin nssadmin 4.0M 0 4.0M 0% /_admin
> JAG nssvol 666G 5.3G 619G 1% /media/nss/JAG
> ARC nssvol 666G 40G 619G 7% /media/nss/ARC
> SYS nssvol 666G 548K 619G 1% /media/nss/SYS
> /dev/sr0 iso9660 659M 659M 0 100% /media/SU2SP2_001
>
> --------------------
>
> On the face of it, there is no apparent reason for the failure to boot
> with ‘drive is full’ messages. I can access pretty much what you might
> want to see.

You could run a “df -h” to make sure that what shows the “nrmdfinfo” is what really is there. And
then a “du …” Sorry, I don’t have time right now to dig the exact incantation. Human readable,
totals… Should be “du -chs WHERE/*”, where “WHERE” is the place where the reiserfs volume is mounted.

> Below I post a screenshot of the server as seen by GNU
> [image: http://www.jagspares.co.uk/image/screenshot.png]

Yes… What is missing there is the size of folders. Specially the /media folder - it could be that
the Acronis software wrote there instead of to the mounted volume. That would have filled your
system volume, it is rather small.

You also have some coredumps dated June. You can delete those.

(I have to run some errands.)


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

On 2010-10-21 16:06, davidm01 wrote:
>
> hcvv;2241499 Wrote:

>> with -/dev/sda1- mounted there, or is that to much (remembering you
>> must look/type instead of copy/paste everything)?
>
> please refer to post#22 Is that not it?

Yes, that’s sda1.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

Using a live CD openSuse, I can read/write/delete most files, but not the three core dumps dated 25 June (total 150Mb), nor the 2Gb in /media/expansion_drive named archive(1)_2010_10_08_11_01_20_900D1.TIB (a TIB is an Acronis archive, and has no right to be where it is, it should have been on an attached USB drive)

All these files say the owner is root and so ‘you are not the owner, so you cannot change these permissions’. So please, how do I take ownership of these files and delete them?

By “becoming root”. There a re several ways: SDB:Login as root - openSUSE.

But in this case

su -c "rm /media/expansion/archive(1)_2010_10_08_11_01_20_900D1.TIB"

would do.

EDIT: And when this file is in that directory where it should have been on a partition mounted on that directory, it is clear that the mount was not done when the file was created.

I found the ‘actual’ address was something like /media/Oebad5a8-5396-…’ but even putting that in in place of media/Expansion_Drive/Archive(1)_… gave me 'syntax error near unexpected token ‘(’ so cannot yet delete the dud 2Gb

On the other hand, deleting the cored dumps worked. !!

Change it to:

su -c "rm /media/expansion/archive\(1\)_2010_10_08_11_01_20_900D1.TIB"

thuis escaping the ( and ) from their special meaning.

Or do

su -
rm '/media/expansion/archive(1)_2010_10_08_11_01_20_900D1.TIB'
exit

On 2010-10-25 12:36, davidm01 wrote:

> All these files say the owner is root and so ‘you are not the owner, so
> you cannot change these permissions’. So please, how do I take ownership
> of these files and delete them?

Just become root. Use “su -” on a terminal. If it asks for the password, I think it is “root”.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)