From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 14 16:04:13 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CBD41065671 for ; Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:04:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from ns1.jnielsen.net (ns1.jnielsen.net [69.55.238.237]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F2D258FC12 for ; Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:04:12 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) Received: from [192.168.5.128] (jn@stealth.jnielsen.net [74.218.226.254]) (authenticated bits=0) by ns1.jnielsen.net (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id m2EG4AhZ050007; Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:04:12 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from lists@jnielsen.net) From: John Nielsen To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:04:09 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.7 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200803141204.09753.lists@jnielsen.net> X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.88.4, clamav-milter version 0.88.4 on ns1.jnielsen.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: Jason Barnes Subject: Re: interactive stop on boot X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:04:13 -0000 On Friday 14 March 2008 11:24:57 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. You probably want your NFS entries in fstab to have the "noauto" option, and you _definitely_ want the last two fields to be zeroes. Even if you _do_ want the NFS mounts to come up at boot I would still set them to be noauto and then write your own script to try to mount them 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, The bootup rc script is just a sh script, you can hack it to do whatever you want. That said, it only bails out if there's a (potentially) significant problem. Given that this is a remote machine, you should be extra-careful when modifying anything to do with the startup process, especially fstab or any firewall rules. You could also look at options like a serial console, IP KVM, or something like a LightsOut card for your system. JN