Salvageable? (Was Re: make installworld error)

[Curtis Vaughan]

On 23 Aug, 2004, at 10:51, Steven Friedrich wrote:

> On Monday 23 August 2004 01:39 pm, Curtis Vaughan wrote:
>> So, could someone tell me if my system is salvageable or not and what 
>> I
>> need to do?
>> Or, should I just start over?
>>
>> Curtis
>>
>> On 21 Aug, 2004, at 17:06, Curtis Vaughan wrote:
>>> So, it is my understanding that I did in fact do things right (or 
>>> that
>>> is
>>> to say that The Complete FreeBSD had the right directions.  But that
>>> something else went wrong.
>>>
>>> BTW, I installed 4.8 from scratch.  Then spent a couple of days
>>> preparing
>>> to do a cvsup making sure that I set everything up right (sources:
>>> Complete FreeBSD, freebsd.org, and this list.
>>>
>>> Then I did the cvsup.  Everything else I've already written about in 
>>> a
>>> previous letter.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that booting into an old kernel is an
>>> option.  I have looked at the files on my system and there is no
>>> kernel.old or anything like it. There is only a kernel directory 
>>> under
>>> the
>>> /boot/ directory.
>>>
>>> What information do I need to provide to perhaps salvage this system?
>>> And what steps did I possibly miss?
>>>
>>> Curtis
>>>
>>>> "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." <kdk at daleco.biz> writes:
>>>>> Yup.  Go back to the top --- I missed where
>>>>> in your list of steps you actually *installed*
>>>>> the new kernel...
>>>>
>>>> That would be where he said:
>>>>>> make kernel
>>>>
>>>> which is equivalent to "make buildkernel installkernel".
>>>>
>>>> It doesn't explain quite what's happening here, though -- and he
>>>> didn't even *hint* at such basic clues as what version he was 
>>>> updating
>>>> from or to (there may be extra steps for large updating jumps).
>>>>
>>>> Booting the old kernel is certainly worth a try before starting 
>>>> over,
>>>> though; the system is quite likely to be salvageable.
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>>>
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>>
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>
>
> Try to boot into single-user mode, i.e., when the system boots, it'll 
> display
> a 10 second countdown. Hit spacebar to abort the countdown.  Then type 
> boot
> -s and it'll boot into single-user mode with only the root partition 
> mounted.
>
> type mount -a to get the other partitions mounted.
>
> Then redo your buildworld,etc., but skip mergemaster stuff.
>
> Here's the steps:
> cd /usr/src
> make buildworld
> make buildkernel KERNCONF=yourkernelname (you DID copy GENERIC and 
> customize
> it didn't you?)
> make installkernel KERNCONF=yourkernelname
> make installworld
> reboot
>
> Skipping the mergemaster stuff will mean that any recent changes to 
> various
> config files will be missing, but you should be able to come up 
> multi-user.
>
> If these steps fail, it'll probably be easier to just reinstall.
>

As I wrote in an earlier letter, I can't get into single-user mode.
Here's what happens after using the boot -s option:

It's asks: Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh

But when I hit RETURN, it says: pid 7 (ssh), uid -: exited on signal 12
Aug 20 08:41:58 init: single user shell terminated, restarting

and then it asks again: Enter full path....

I have tried also manually entering in:
/bin/sh
/bin/csh
/bin/chsh
/usr/local/bin/bash
etc.
etc.

Curtis