Arch Linux

wolfo9999

Member

Registered: 2012-11-27

Posts: 19

What is the rootfs prompt and how can I recover from it?

This is a fork of a previous question over at SuperUser that wonderfully explained what rootfs is but not quite what I was looking for. I would like to know how to (if possible) recover from the [rootfs /]# prompt that you are dropped to if a major problem occurs. I have never had an unfixable problem when this happens, but it always requires me to either load a livecd or boot the recovery kernel. I am looking for a way I could load and fix my system from that prompt. Any suggestions or comments would help, but I am really looking for a decisive answer.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: What is the rootfs prompt and how can I recover from it?

I think what you are thinking of here is the initramfs shell.  When you boot your system from what you call the "recovery kernel" you are really booting the same kernel.  But you are booting with a different initramfs.  Do a bit of googling about what the initramfs is (previously referred to as the initramfs and initcpio… though they were slightly different, the concept is the same).

Once you figure out how the boot process works, you will understand what exactly you are being dropped into.  The cause is because the real root device could not be found or could not be mounted for whatever reason.

I am a btrfs user, and as such I have to be acutely aware that I might run into problems at any time.  So because of this, I keep the btrfs tools in the recovery initramfs.  So I have a separate mkinitpcio.conf for the regular initramfs and the fallback initramfs.  If things fail, then I can boot into the fallback and I have all the btrfs tools (and a few other select things) at my disposal.