From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 15 17:58:06 2004 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 726D516A4CF for ; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 17:58:06 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtpout.mac.com (smtpout.mac.com [17.250.248.46]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4939843D2D for ; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 17:58:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from davidkurtz@mac.com) Received: from mac.com (smtpin08-en2 [10.13.10.153]) by smtpout.mac.com (8.12.6/MantshX 2.0) with ESMTP id i9FHw5BV007233 for ; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:58:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [10.1.218.146] (216-103-134-129.hob.com [216.103.134.129]) (authenticated bits=0) by mac.com (Xserve/smtpin08/MantshX 4.0) with ESMTP id i9FHw1kr000222 for ; Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:58:05 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:58:03 -0700 From: David Kurtz To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Priority: 3 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Mailer: Mailsmith 2.1.4 (Blindsider) Subject: How to recover from setting boot_single=""? 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: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 17:58:06 -0000 Short story: I placed a single line, boot_single=3D"" into the previously empty file /boot/loader.conf and now my machine boots w= ith an extremely limited read-only volume. How do I get my old boot behavior back? Long story: I was muddling through updating the kernel and world for the fi= rst time, going from FreeBSD 5.1 =3D> 5.2. Following instructions in /usr/s= rc/UPDATING I made backups, made buildworld, etc. until it got to the point= where it says reboot in single user. Never having done that, I tried first by "reboot"ing, but for some reason m= y USB keyboard doesn't get power until further on in the boot cycle, so I c= ouldn't just "press 4." I looked through the docs and found instruction say= ing that I should set boot_single. I'm guessing I should have set it to som= ething other than "", which is just copied from /boot/defaults/loader.conf. So, a couple more questions: what is this limited read-only mode exactly? W= here are my files (e.g. /usr is empty)? What should I have done? Is it poss= ible to back out? It's a personal sandbox, and everything I need is already safely backed up;= if I need to just blast the whole system with a CD install, I can do that.= But I am curious to know if it's possible to u-turn in this cul-de-sac. Ap= parently, I know just enough to get myself into trouble, but not enough to = get out.