single user mode freebsd11/rpi2

[Tim Kientzle]

> On Sep 12, 2015, at 8:04 AM, John <freebsd-lists at potato.growveg.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello list,
> 
> I need to either make the system single user node by either becoming
> it (as root, shutdown now) or booting into it (either at the boot prompt or
> with nextboot) and I can do neither, so obviously I'm going about this
> the wrong way. "shutdown now" never returns a prompt and 
> "nextboot -o "-s" -k kernel *will* boot the kernel after shutdown -p
> but I get no prompt. Last two lines of output:
> 
> warning: no time-of-day clock registered, system time will not be set accurately
> random: unblocking device.
> 
> and there it sits. I left it for 15 mins to make sure it wasn't just slow.
> ctrl-alt-del rebooted the pi but other than that, nothing had any effect.

The default system console is the serial console.

You'll need one of these (or something equivalent):

    http://www.adafruit.com/product/954

Here's a good picture showing how to connect it:

http://tinkersphere.com/raspberry-pi-accessories/317-usb-to-ttl-serial-cable-for-raspberry-pi-debugging.html

Note:  The red wire does not need to be connected:  If you do connect it, it will provide power and the board will boot, which may or may not be what you want.  (In particular, if you have USB accessories plugged into your RPI2, the red wire here may not provide enough power.)

This will also give you access to the U-Boot and ubldr prompts.

> 
> How can I make it single user mode? The reason this needs to be done is
> I need to move some filesystems around.

If you have another FreeBSD machine, you can mount the SD card there to do major surgery like this.

Cheers,

Tim