LVM might have locked me out

[Dongwu Zeng]

In rescue mode, do you see anything in /proc/partitions? As long as your
original root disk is not damaged, you should see sth there. You can then
manually mount your original root file system using the name in that file.
Please don't mount to /. You can create a directory like /tmp/mnt and then
"mount /dev/sda1 /tmp/mnt".

Good luck.

Dongwu


On 10/26/07 4:27 PM, "Herta Van den Eynde" <herta.vandeneynde at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 27/10/2007, rchamberland <rchamberland at chs.ca> wrote:
>> 
>> Thanks Herta, especially for refraining from making comments about newbie
>> mistakes. :)
>> 
>> I tried that and it's not looking good.  The rescue system can't find any
>> existing linux system, it even says it can't see any hard drives.  I can get
>> a shell but it doesn't see anything beyond that.  Mount /mnt/sysimg doesn't
>> work because there is no sysimg.
>> 
>> When I cold boot without the rescue disk I can get a wonky "filesystem
>> repair" shell that gives errors and needs full command paths.  That shell
>> sees the old /etc/fstab but it's read-only and vi just gives me an error
>> when I try to overwrite.
>> 
>> I think fstab may be locked by fstab-sync.  However, that command seems to
>> be stored in /usr/sbin, which seems to be empty - probably messed up by my
>> lvm stupidity.  On the other hand, how can that be...
>> 
>> I'll wait until Monday and if there doesn't seem any way around it I guess
>> I'll have to do a full reinstall.  Not looking forward to that but oh well.
>> 
>> Rob C
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: redhat-sysadmin-list-bounces at redhat.com
>> [mailto:redhat-sysadmin-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Herta Van den
>> Eynde
>> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 4:43 PM
>> To: redhat-sysadmin-list at redhat.com
>> Subject: Re: LVM might have locked me out
>> 
>> On 26/10/2007, rchamberland <rchamberland at chs.ca> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I'm using RHEL4.  I had a system with RAID1/5 where the RAID 5 disks were
>>> uninitialized, so I went into LVM and created some logical volumes out of
>>> them.  I didn't know what to mount them to so I set them to mount to /
>> until
>>> I figured that out.  I created the volumes, then locked the machine and
>> went
>>> to lunch.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> When I came back my password wasn't working, the lock screen won't let me
>>> change login, and when I SSH into the machine my root and user passwords
>>> aren't being accepted.  Ctl-Alt-F1 gives me a login prompt only, when I
>>> enter something it just gives me another login prompt, no password
>> request.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Looks like I messed up.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure how to proceed now.  Any suggestions?  I'm not exactly sure
>> how
>>> I messed up, but I guess the OS can't find /etc/passwd now? I'm afraid to
>>> cold reboot in case it makes the problem worse.
>>> 
>>> 
>> You might be able to cold boot into single user mode.  If not, cold
>> boot off an installation CD into rescue mode.  In both cases, fix
>> /etc/fstab.
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> 
>> Herta
> 
> We've all been newbies, Rob, and given all the products that are out
> there,  most of us are bound to be newbies again at one time or
> another, so just ignore derisive comments made by people who forgot
> what that was like.
> 
> A bit amazed that the rescue boot doesn't see the old filesystems.
> 
> Once you've booted in single user mode, try mounting / in rw mode
> ("mount -o rw xxx", where xxx is whatever device the original / is
> on).  You should then be able to modify fstab.
> 
> If not, keep us posted.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Herta
> 
> P.S. Most lists prefer bottom post replies.  It makes it easier to
> read the problem top-down.
> 
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