Topic: minimal BASH-like line editing is supported POST USB HDD backup & Reboot

[mileshc]

Mary, Thank you very much yet again.  I feel like a complete cretin.  Assumption is a dangerous thing! I could have sworn there was plenty of space.  Drat those end users. Ahh that may be me.

I checked with df -h which indeed revealed.

df -h
                       size   used   avail   use%   mounted
/dev/main/root   145G  145G   0       100%    /
/dev/md1           99M   45M   50M    48%     /boot

I have the deleted some old archives off the system & re-run the upgrade.

post deletions, boot is the same & "/" is 118G used & 21G available.

It now completes the upgrade & reboots, BUT right back to the minimal Grub.

I will now try your further suggestions etc.

Cheers,

Miles (CLI & more, challenged) HC

[mileshc]

Hello Mary & all.

The previous post may have inferred that the problem was resolved & caused by a full HDD. It MAY have been caused by it but deleting files & re-running an upgrade did not work.

I tried to connect a USB pen drive but could not get, due to lack of knowledge, find it or mount it from the rescue console, chroot /mnt/sysimage

I did find in /etc/fstab  dev/sdc1  /media/Expansion_Drive ntfs  etc....  This was the Segate device I connected that caused the problem.  I also found later under /media/Expansion_Drive a 36Gb smeserver.tgz file the aborted backup to USB disk file!

I finally fixed, at least sofar by booting from the 7.4 CD-ROM (thank you Mary) & sme rescue  chroot /mnt/sysimage

From here I used mc & navigated to /boot/grub & manually edited the 0 byte grub.conf file to read :-

default=0
timeout-5

title SME Server (2.6.9-89.0.16.EL)
      root (hd0,0)
      kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-89.0.16.EL ro root=/dev/main/root
      initrd /initrd-2.6.9-89.0.16.EL.img

This did not boot as the image file did not exist, good grief, so I altered (back to rescue console etc.) & amended to the last latest image in /boot which was 2.6.9-78.0.22.EL.img

This now boot up just fine.  I will I guess temporarily alter the NIC settings & see what an update & upgrade does & report back.

So connecting a new Ext. USB HDD out of the box (NTFS?) & running "backup to USB disk" is not recommended & not in the manual (RTFM!)

I am not to sure if it is worth testing this again to see if the fault is reproducible or not.  many Other things to do here really.

Cheers,

Miles HC

[janet]

mileshc

I suggest you format any USB drives you use on sme to ext3, see
http://wiki.contribs.org/USBDisks

[mileshc]

Arrghh!!

So I booted a few times & all seemed OK.

I amended /etc/fstab & removed the line relating to the non existent /dev/sdc /media/Expansion_Drive  etc.
I ran from root yum update & signal-event post-upgrade; signal-event reboot
I now have a system that boots so far and Kernel panics!
I have tried the previous image & current one in EL & smp versions it still panics.
I reverted to the previous hand made grub & it still panics (not sure why I did this)

I note the lvm & raid are not loading, error /bin/lvm no devices found.
unmount /initrd/dev  ?
Kernel panic non specific

I will have a shufty around to look for others with the same or similar.  I'd like to know why this has occurred, me fiddling with the fstab? updating? I have not had any such problems before in many years.  A little knowledge can be fatal?

Miles HC

[MSmith]

I'd also run a full hardware diagnostic including but not limited to RAM testing and using the manufacturer's diagnostic CD to test the hard drives and Dell's diagnostic CD to test the other system hardware.