Server boot process stuck.

[Michael_590]

Dear friends.

I have a really critical problem.
My Red hat 9 server can't boot.
It stuck with the error:
mounting proc filesystem FAILED.
I saw the same message in forum already , but without solution.
Could you please advice what to check?
I boot the server in rescue mode, then check the file systems (using e2fsck) everything is fine. But when I boot the server in normal mode I get the same error. In addition is makes a Segmentation fault.

I'll be really grateful any help.

[Stuart Browne]

Wow. Never seen that one before.

Off the top of my head, things to check in Rescue mode:

/proc exists.
/proc has 0555 permissions.
/proc is empty (no contents).
/proc is owner/group root/root.

After that, I'd be looking at trying to put the kernel back on the system again (might be corrupted).

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom Michel,

This could be disk corruption. It could be boot record corruption or simply OS corruptoin.

Please in rescue mode take a look at the system log, /var/log/messages and see if there is more evidence to point to the problem.

The ultimate fix though may be a reinstallation of the OS, after confirming that your hardware is in good shape.

SEP

[Ivan Ferreira]

Have you upgraded/recompiled your kernel? Ensure that proc support is enabled. Also, as said above, ensure that the /proc mount point exists.

Can you mount in rescue mode the file systems to verify the contents?

Can you chroot to your real root filesystem after you booted in rescue mode?

[Vipulinux]

Hi
Have seen this one somewhere befrore, use this,
login into repair mode, remount root filesystem as read-write, and restore /dev/null:
# mount -n -o remount,rw /
# rm -f /dev/null
# mknod -m 0666 /dev/null c 1 3



Hope this helps

Cheers
Vipul

[Bill Thorsteinson]

Try disabling the mount of /proc. It is
not a disk file system.

In rescue mode open /etc/fstab and comment
out the mount of /proc.

This should get you up and running.

Then try manually mounting /proc.

[Indrajit_1]

Hi;

u need to boot the machine with first cd of Red Hat linux and work with debug mode.. In boot prompt type the following command..

boot:debug

Read the menu windows carefully..

u need to go under /mnt/sysimage (this will automatically mount)
#cd /mnt/sysimage
#vi /etc/fstab
see if there is a proper entry in fstab file..
And also see if /prod is present.
Hope this will resolve ur issue

cheers
indrajit

[Michael_590]

Thank you for your helps, mates.

I tried all your advices, but noting helped.
I think I had to add that I run mirror too in the system. When I unplugged the second hard drive the system booted OK. So I think the problem was in second mirror disk.

Anyway, thanks a lot. I close the topic.

[Michael_590]

The hardware problem