From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Jan 12 17: 0: 2 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from midway.uchicago.edu (midway.uchicago.edu [128.135.12.12]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 598F037B41C for ; Sat, 12 Jan 2002 16:59:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from there (adsl-65-42-85-188.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net [65.42.85.188]) by midway.uchicago.edu (8.11.6/8.11.6) with SMTP id g0D0xw304790 for ; Sat, 12 Jan 2002 18:59:58 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: <200201130059.g0D0xw304790@midway.uchicago.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15" From: David Syphers Reply-To: charon@seektruth.org To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: can't mount / properly, fstab woes Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 19:00:02 -0600 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.1] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I marked / read-only in /etc/fstab - this was the stupid move. I didn't fully understand what would be made read only. The kernel being read-only is great, but suddenly /etc/fstab is read-only too. So now I can't make / read-write again. Then there was a power outage, so the system didn't shut down cleanly. I booted to single-user mode, and managed to run fsck on /, but only by specifying the device name, since /etc/fstab is apparently FUBAR. But it won't let me mount / read-write, so I can't change fstab. It keeps complaining 'inappropriate file type or format', and I don't understand what that means. It doesn't make it easier that I have to direct someone how do this over the phone, since I can't ssh into the box Help!! And for the record, I think making / read-only is something that should _never_ be done. The system does _not_ work properly in this mode, and everything gives me errors. To every FreeBSD security how-to out there - stop recommending this! If that kind of security is desired, then running the whole computer from a CDROM is probably the best idea. Please cc: me. -David To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message