From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 23 19:01:36 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE5AD16A4CE for ; Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:01:36 +0000 (GMT) Received: from szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca (s142-179-111-232.bc.hsia.telus.net [142.179.111.232]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6404B43D2D for ; Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:01:34 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from sandy@krvarr.bc.ca) Received: from szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca (8.13.1/8.12.11) with ESMTP id j1NJ1QWO027710; Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:01:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sandy@szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca) Received: (from sandy@localhost) by szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca (8.13.1/8.12.11/Submit) id j1NJ1MhV027707; Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:01:22 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from sandy) From: Sandy Rutherford MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <16924.54017.778645.120360@szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca> Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 11:01:21 -0800 To: "Loren M. Lang" In-Reply-To: <20050220144833.GG4471@alzatex.com> References: <03fb01c51457$3f246ff0$0b01a8c0@enigmedia.net> <1108595484.708.8.camel@chaucer.jeays.ca> <4213F7A1.3030304@cis.strath.ac.uk> <20050217020202.GB34810@mail.oss.uswest.net> <16916.22919.40934.655595@szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca> <20050220144833.GG4471@alzatex.com> X-Mailer: VM 7.07 under Emacs 21.3.1 X-krvarr.bc.ca-MailScanner-Information: Please contact postmaster@krvarr.bc.ca for more information. X-krvarr.bc.ca-MailScanner: Not scanned: please contact postmaster@krvarr.bc.ca for details. X-krvarr.bc.ca-MailScanner-From: sandy@szamoca.krvarr.bc.ca cc: Jamie Novak cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: can't reboot after messing up my rc.conf file X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:01:37 -0000 >>>>> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 06:48:33 -0800, >>>>> "Loren M. Lang" said: > On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 12:44:55AM -0800, Sandy Rutherford wrote: >> >>>>> On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:02:02 -0600, >> >>>>> Jamie Novak said: >> >> > I may have missed something from the thread before I joined the list, >> > but is there any reason you can't just mount the filesystems and use vi >> > as you're used to? If you're getting far enough in the boot process to >> > get an opportunity to interact with a shell, you should just be able to >> > mount -a and vi whatever. (Or, if you want to play it safe (or if the >> > system wasn't cleanly shutdown before), fsck and then mount -a) >> >> This should work fine. Although, depending on where he is in the boot >> process, / may be mounted read-only. Do `mount -uw /' to make it >> read-write. >> >> The lesson here is that when editing any file that is even remotely >> connected to the boot process, _make_a_backup_copy_. You can then >> simply mv the backup copy back into place should you mess up. > Actually, Absolute BSD has a handy suggestion about using rcs for all > important files in /etc/. Maybe you should try looking into that. I actually do both. RCS is very usefull for unwinding changes to get the system back to a previous state, should you realise that some of your "improvements" weren't such a good idea afterall. However, if you are concerned that your changes might adversely affect the boot process, then keeping your recovery plan as simple as possible is highly recommended. It doesn't get much simpler than `cp'. Sandy