interactive stop on boot

[Christopher Sean Hilton]

On Mar 14, 2008, at 11:24 AM, Jason Barnes wrote:

> Hi -- I'm running a "Tombstone" machine that's functioning as a
> server.  The machine is located somewhere with a fast connection, and
> not somewhere that I have easy access to.  As such, I want this
> machine to do its best to boot up and get onto the network, no matter
> what happens on boot, so that I have a chance to actually fix the
> problem.
>
> Lately when it boots it runs into an NFS mounting error, claiming that
> some of my NFS-mounted drives have unexpected inconsistencies.  It
> says "unexpected error - help!" and then quits to a /bin/sh
> single-user-mode prompt.  As I am 10 miles away, this is decidedly
> unhelpful.  I don't care if it can't mount some irrelevant drive or
> not; I want it to boot up and ask me questions later.
>
> Is there a way that I can set the machine to do its best to boot no
> matter what it finds at boot time?  Thanks in advance for any help you
> can provide,
>

Depends on the whether or not the system needs something from the NFS  
mount at boot time. If it doesn't then you would do well to use amd  
(man 8 amd) to handle the mount. The short of is that amd automates  
the process of mounting a filesystem by presenting a directory. When a  
process requests a file within that directory amd performs the mount.  
Amd helps by deferring the mount until something actually needs  
something from the remote filesystem.

Simpler still would be to change the mounts entry to noauto in /etc/ 
fstab. However then you or someone else will have to perform the mount  
when you need the filesystem.

-- Chris