Bug#1000239: Rescue system won't find root partition, but insists on /usr
TomK <forensic@milwpc.com> writes:
> This sounds correct, based on my experience with the bug.
> I suppose now there are zero ways to definitively determine which
> partition is actually root. So maybe a hidden flag (empty) file in
> root might do the trick.
I'd expect that looking for e.g. /etc/fstab on a file system would
pretty reliably tell you that it's a Linux root filesystem. One could
also/alternatively look for the presence of /sys and /proc as
directories.
> But the fact that /usr can be automounted, but nothing else can be manually mounted afterward is also a problem.
I'm assuming that by "automounted" you mean: automatically mounted by
the rescue system.
If your setup is unusual, then you should probably expect to have to do
some work when rescuing it, which for hard to guess additional
partitions is going to be going into the installer's shell, and mounting
things yourself, which doesn't strike me as particularly difficult (but
should be documented, if it isn't already).
Is it a problem if /home or /usr/share are left unmounted during rescue?
I would say no, unless you've done something unwise, like moving
/usr/lib to /home/oops_I_ran_out_of_room_on_usr/lib, and symlinked it
back to /usr/lib.
> If there was a separate script to do the chroot part, and some manual
> interface by which to mount; perhaps the mount command in the rescue
> system PATH, the whole thing would be more flexible during the
> transition to ro mount for /usr in future Debian versions.
mount is definitely in the rescue system's PATH, since (as I mentioned
before) one could always work round this problem by dropping into the
installer's shell and mounting /usr by hand before then using the
to-be-rescued system's shell.
Actually, I just spun up the latest netinst (with the /usr mount fix) in
rescue mode, and not only does it successfully mount a separate /usr
(well done Steve :-) ), but it has mount in the PATH, and I am able to
umount & mount /boot/efi, so I'm not sure what you're on about here.
> I'm not well versed on Debian policy, so just ignore my input if it
> makes no sense. If you find it irritating, it's my ignorance at work,
> nothing intentional.
No worries, but I think you need to fact-check your assumptions in
future.
Cheers, Phil.
--
|)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560] HANDS.COM Ltd.
|-| http://www.hands.com/ http://ftp.uk.debian.org/
|(| Hugo-Klemm-Strasse 34, 21075 Hamburg, GERMANY
Reply to: