Hello,

my Gentoo does no longer boot after a system update

First, it wanted /dev/BOOT, which was not existing - i commented that out
from fstab. I then realized that /etc/fstab was completely overwritten, as
a clean dev-filesystem, so I put my drives with their respective
mountpoints back in.

Now Gentoo boots only into the shell, does no longer start KDE as it did
before. But even worse, I can not even log on anymore since the root
password and my user password (both the original passwords of my Jollix
Gentoo Live CD) do not work anymore. So I can get back on my system only
via chroot, I guess and setup new passwords.

What the heck is wrong, why did Gentoo change to a dev fs, without keeping
my old filesystem? And how can I get back the automatic KDE start? I know
that it updated the init scripts - but what a mess that is now.... :-(((

Thank you in advance!

--

Mandrake 9.1 (Kernel 2.4.22-0.18mdk Athlon)

On 2003-11-30, Christian Wolff <wolfchri@removethis.web.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> my Gentoo does no longer boot after a system update
>
> First, it wanted /dev/BOOT, which was not existing - i commented that out
> from fstab. I then realized that /etc/fstab was completely overwritten, as
> a clean dev-filesystem, so I put my drives with their respective
> mountpoints back in.
>
> Now Gentoo boots only into the shell, does no longer start KDE as it did
> before. But even worse, I can not even log on anymore since the root
> password and my user password (both the original passwords of my Jollix
> Gentoo Live CD) do not work anymore. So I can get back on my system only
> via chroot, I guess and setup new passwords.
>
> What the heck is wrong, why did Gentoo change to a dev fs, without keeping
> my old filesystem? And how can I get back the automatic KDE start? I know
> that it updated the init scripts - but what a mess that is now.... :-(((
>
> Thank you in advance!
>

You screwed up in etc-update and replaced a lot of important files.

--
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net #gentoo, irc.oftc.net #cola
Opinions expressed are my own, not those of Gentoo Linux or any
other entity I am associated with unless stated otherwise.

Christian Wolff <wolfchri@removethis.web.de> writes:

> Now Gentoo boots only into the shell, does no longer start KDE as it did
> before.

In /etc/rc.conf set DISPLAYMANAGER=kde


> But even worse, I can not even log on anymore since the root
> password and my user password (both the original passwords of my Jollix
> Gentoo Live CD) do not work anymore.

Try giving the kernel a boot parameter of 'S' or maybe '-S' to boot
into Single-user mode and set new passwords with 'passwd'.

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 23:38:21 +0000, Jon Portnoy wrote:

> You screwed up in etc-update and replaced a lot of important files.

sounds like you basically ran `etc-update` and then hit -3 ...
so you lost your custom fstab, passwd, shadow, etc...

all the tips provided should put you back in bootable shape
-mike

Mike Frysinger wrote:

> On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 23:38:21 +0000, Jon Portnoy wrote:
>
>> You screwed up in etc-update and replaced a lot of important files.
>
> sounds like you basically ran `etc-update` and then hit -3 ...
> so you lost your custom fstab, passwd, shadow, etc...
>
> all the tips provided should put you back in bootable shape
> -mike


Thanky for all your help, but it didnt work, since I also hardened my system
with bastille, so I basically locked myself out very sucessfully :-) Since
I am not hacker, I have no clue how to get back in since I can not even use
su as a user (that worked after I found the old passwd and shadow files).

So now I am copying my backup over the destroyed gentoo. However, what
exactl did I do wrong with this etc-update skript? Is there some
explanation on the gentoo site how I can save my configs without doing a
full backup every time I upgrade my system?

Thank you all a lot for your patience!

--

Mandrake 9.1 (Kernel 2.4.22-0.18mdk Athlon)

Christian Wolff <wolfchri@removethis.web.de> writes:

> Thanky for all your help, but it didnt work, since I also hardened my system
> with bastille, so I basically locked myself out very sucessfully

Now you can educate me ;-) What is bastille?


> So now I am copying my backup over the destroyed gentoo. However, what
> exactl did I do wrong with this etc-update skript? Is there some
> explanation on the gentoo site how I can save my configs without doing a
> full backup every time I upgrade my system?


The important thing is to understand what the files in /etc actually do.

The gentoo installation process requires you to customize some of those
files when you are installing gentoo.

Each time you do an emerge sync and then emerge -u world you may be
asked to update some of the files in /etc by running etc-update.

If you see any proposed changes to any of the data you supplied during
gentoo installation , such as hostnames, IP addresses, display manager,
group names, user names, and anything else that is peculiar to your
individual machine, then you should decline to accept the change
and keep the old configuration file in /etc.

This knowledge comes only with experience -- and experience comes only
with mistakes ;-) Don't give up! Keep making mistakes and you will
live to enjoy your mistakes...there is nothing quite as satisfying as
a lifetime of mistakes and the lessons learned from them! ;-)

Just asked any married man ;-)

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 12:35:03 -0800, walt wrote:

> Christian Wolff <wolfchri@removethis.web.de> writes:
>
>> Thanky for all your help, but it didnt work, since I also hardened my system
>> with bastille, so I basically locked myself out very sucessfully
>
> Now you can educate me ;-) What is bastille?

http://www.bastille-linux.org/
generic *nix hardening util
-mike