[SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

trusktr · 2012-04-02 23:08:27

Hahaha... Well, as you can imagine, I'm in a very interesting predicament now. My fingers moved too fast and now /lib is gone. Obviously, I can't reboot, or even terminate anything that's currently running or it won't start again. If I close this browser window, I might be done for. My 'pacman' command is gone, my 'ls' command is gone, even my 'bash' command is gone... Everything is gone. haha

Shoot.

Hmmmm... Any suggestions?

Last edited by trusktr (2012-05-20 11:12:34)

Roken · 2012-04-02 23:11:45

I would have suggested having a go at reinstalling the latest version of everything in the cache, but to be honest it would probably take you longer than a fresh install would (much longer). And if pacman is dead you're going to struggle with that anyway. I'd be tempted to recover what you need from the drive, and start again. (You can use a live CD to recover data, as long as you have somewhere to put it).

ConnorBehan · 2012-04-02 23:30:49

If glibc is gone I think you need a recovery CD. Boot into a CD, mount your root partition to /mnt and run:

mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount -t proc /proc /mnt/proc/
mount -t sysfs /sys /mnt/sys/

Then you can install packages to that root with pacman -U -r. Either get them from the cache or a USB drive or portable storage or something. At the very least you'll want to reinstall everything from core.

trusktr · 2012-04-02 23:47:51

The only thing gone are all the *.so files that were in /lib, the rest of the filesystem is intact... Is glibc still useable?

Hmmm... I don't have a thumb drive or any blank CDs. All I have is Windows that I can boot from my other drive.

Last edited by trusktr (2012-04-02 23:54:48)

ConnorBehan · 2012-04-03 00:04:06

I think those libraries are important for glibc. Do you have a 32 bit system? Do you have tar or zip or some other archive manager working? If so I could probably email you my copies of them. As long as you're aware of how insecure this is (having a recovery CD handy is a must!)

trusktr · 2012-04-03 00:07:53

Lol, thanks, but no, all my commands are gone including tar or zip and except for 'cd' and 'pwd' from what I can tell. I can't execute anything in /bin/ or /usr/bin for some reason considering I only deleted /lib/...

I just realized I have an android phone. I wonder if I can boot from that.

Last edited by trusktr (2012-04-03 00:08:23)

ConnorBehan · 2012-04-03 00:19:58

The binaries you still have depend on libc, that's why. I might be willing to transfer one at a time.

trusktr · 2012-04-03 00:38:30

Sure, I'm down to try it. I still have my email open and access to file manager by opening folders from the desktop.

Last edited by trusktr (2012-04-03 00:43:30)

trusktr · 2012-04-03 00:49:21

@ConnorBehan I sent you my email. I have no way of creating the /lib/ directories in this state though. It seems I'll have to put Arch on my Android so I can boot and re-install the packages... But the question is which packages do I have to re-install?

skunktrader · 2012-04-03 01:07:36

trusktr wrote:

But the question is which packages do I have to re-install?

Once you have reinstalled pacman, you may be able to run testdb to identify which files are missing

trusktr · 2012-04-03 01:13:03

skunktrader wrote:

trusktr wrote:
But the question is which packages do I have to re-install?
Once you have reinstalled pacman, you may be able to run testdb to identify which files are missing

oh ok, sweet.

So I've downloaded all the .so files that ConnorBehan sent me into a directory in my user's home folder. I gotta figure out how to export this location now. Do I add it to LD_LIBRARY_PATH?

EDIT: I tried exporting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include the folder where I downloaded the files, but then there's no effect.

If I try the pacman command, I get

-bash: /usr/bin/pacman: No such file or directory

but I the only thing I deleted is /lib. /usr/bin/pacman actually exists. I wonder if it won't work because bash is missing?

Last edited by trusktr (2012-04-03 01:56:55)

trusktr · 2012-05-19 20:12:28

@ConnorBehan Alright, I'm gunna try booting the live CD and installing packages. I wonder how to get the latest packages. I have to mount root, but my pacman cache is in the home partition (/home/pacman/cache) so I have to mount that too I suppose.

Awebb · 2012-05-20 05:34:47

Here, in case you haven't seen this yet: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_Root

trusktr · 2012-05-20 07:54:24

@Awebb Thanks! I did see that and am about to try it right now because the following two commands don't seem to work:

# pacman -r /mnt/path/to/root -S $(pacman -Qeq -r /mnt/path/to/root) --noconfirm
# pacman -r /mnt/path/to/root -S $(pacman -Qdq -r /mnt/path/to/root) --noconfirm --asdeps

trusktr · 2012-05-20 08:28:43

@ConnorBehan I tried mounting the root partition along with the other mount commands you mentioned then chrooting into it but when I try to chroot into it I get this error:

# mount <root_partition> /mnt
# mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev 
# mount -t proc /proc /mnt/proc/
# mount -t sysfs /sys /mnt/sys/ 
# chroot /months /bin/bash
chroot: failed to run command `/bin/bash': No such file or directory.

Is there a simple way to re-install all packages like I attempted in my previous comment? Or should I stick to the chroot method and how?

trusktr · 2012-05-20 11:10:01

Alright, I came up with a solution after mounting my root partition from a LiveCD like @ConnorBehan suggested, but I'm sure it would've been cleaner had I more experience with Bash:

#!/bin/bash

pacman -Qe -r /mnt/arch/root/ > explicit_pkgs.txt
while read line; do
	pkgFile=/mnt/arch/home/pacman/pkg/${line// /-}-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
	if [ ! -e $pkgFile ]; then
		pkgFile=/mnt/arch/home/pacman/pkg/${line// /-}-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz
		#echo "test 1"
	fi
	if [ ! -e $pkgFile ]; then
		pkgFile=/mnt/arch/home/pacman/pkg/${line// /-}-any.pkg.tar.xz
		#echo "test 2"
	fi
	if [ ! -e $pkgFile ]; then
		pkgFile=/mnt/arch/home/pacman/pkg/${line// /-}-any.pkg.tar.gz
		#echo "test 3"
	fi

	echo
	echo
	echo "Installing $pkgFile"
	echo "-----------------------------"

	pacman -r /mnt/arch/root -U $pkgFile --noconfirm
done < "explicit_pkgs.txt"

pacman -Qd -r /mnt/arch/root/ > dependancy_pkgs.txt
while read line; do
	pkgFile=/mnt/arch/home/pacman/pkg/${line// /-}-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
	if [ ! -e $pkgFile ]; then
		pkgFile=/mnt/arch/home/pacman/pkg/${line// /-}-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz
		#echo "test 1"
	fi
	if [ ! -e $pkgFile ]; then
		pkgFile=/mnt/arch/home/pacman/pkg/${line// /-}-any.pkg.tar.xz
		#echo "test 2"
	fi
	if [ ! -e $pkgFile ]; then
		pkgFile=/mnt/arch/home/pacman/pkg/${line// /-}-any.pkg.tar.gz
		#echo "test 3"
	fi

	echo
	echo
	echo "Installing $pkgFile"
	echo "-----------------------------"

	pacman -r /mnt/arch/root -U $pkgFile --noconfirm --asdeps
done < "dependancy_pkgs.txt"

Last edited by trusktr (2012-05-20 11:11:02)

litemotiv · 2012-05-20 11:24:03

You've been trying to fix this for one and a halve month now..?

trusktr · 2012-05-20 11:38:29

Haha yeah, I left my desktop unfixed and installed Arch on my laptop to get me through classes. The semester's over now though.

Allan · 2012-05-20 11:56:33

FYI....

pacman -r /mnt/arch/root --cachedir /mnt/arch/root/var/cache/pacman -S $(pacman -r /mnt/arch/root -Qqk | cut -f1 -d" " | sort -u)

trusktr · 2012-05-20 12:26:21

@Allan Nice!... Hey, but what about packages installed by -U or from AUR? Users who've installed AUR packages will see an error along the lines of "error: target not found: aur-package" if they try that command.

fsckd · 2012-05-20 15:54:30

Install those manually.

trusktr · 2012-05-21 03:46:22

@fsckd That's what I ended up doing. What I mean is that @Allan's suggestion will only work if every single package of is from an official repo, otherwise the command will error out and won't complete when it encounters a package not in the official repos.

@kano wrote a nice one that takes that into consideration: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 99#p263399

A combination of @Allan's and @kano's would have done the trick in my case.

Last edited by trusktr (2012-05-21 03:47:45)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-04-02 23:08:27

[SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#2 2012-04-02 23:11:45

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#3 2012-04-02 23:30:49

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#4 2012-04-02 23:47:51

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#5 2012-04-03 00:04:06

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#6 2012-04-03 00:07:53

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#7 2012-04-03 00:19:58

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#8 2012-04-03 00:38:30

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#9 2012-04-03 00:49:21

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#10 2012-04-03 01:07:36

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#11 2012-04-03 01:13:03

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#12 2012-05-19 20:12:28

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#13 2012-05-20 05:34:47

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#14 2012-05-20 07:54:24

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#15 2012-05-20 08:28:43

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#16 2012-05-20 11:10:01

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#17 2012-05-20 11:24:03

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#18 2012-05-20 11:38:29

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#19 2012-05-20 11:56:33

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#20 2012-05-20 12:26:21

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#21 2012-05-20 15:54:30

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

#22 2012-05-21 03:46:22

Re: [SOLVED] I accidentally did "rm -rf /lib/" as root.

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