Upgrade broke complete system

hinrich · 2009-12-20 18:25:21

The 2.6.32 kernel-headers update (I think) broke my whole system, I can neither load the kernel image nor chroot in the system from a live cd (!). I get always the same error:

Too many levels of symbolic links

(e.g. "chroot: cannot run command '/bin/bash': Too many levels of symbolic links")

Something probably went wrong at the upgrade. If trying to reinstall kernel-headers 2.6.32.1 or kernel26 2.6.31.5 (is it right that those packages have different version numbers in the repro?) with the "-r /mnt" swich (instead of chrooting) I get the following
error:

command failed to execute correctly

for at least some of the packages (it doesn't get logged anywhere). Downgrading to kernel-headers 2.6.31 complains about dependency issues (glibc).

This is my pacman.log of the last upgrade (nothing special as far as I can see):
http://pastebin.com/m365c5914

I couldn't reboot or login as a different user. Had to do a hard reset. This is my error.log:
Dec 20 13:29:30 arch gdm-binary[5099]: ERROR: gdm_slave_exec_script: Ausführen gescheitert: /etc/gdm/PostSession/Default
Dec 20 13:29:32 arch agetty[1765]: tty1: can't exec /bin/login: Too many levels of symbolic links
Dec 20 13:30:20 arch acpid: execl(): Too many levels of symbolic links

Any help please?

Last edited by hinrich (2009-12-20 18:27:21)

R00KIE · 2009-12-20 20:06:40

Did you update glibc too? And for any reason did you change /lib64 to be a link to /lib ?

hinrich · 2009-12-20 23:10:01

R00KIE wrote:

Did you update glibc too? And for any reason did you change /lib64 to be a link to /lib ?

Thank you, you hit the bulls-eye! I really did link lib64 to lib about a year ago, because I had to use some obscure proprietary 64-Bit driver looking for all libs in /lib64. Don't know why it didn't cause any problems up to now.
pacman -r /mnt -S kernel-headers kernel26
with the Arch system mounted to /mnt fixed the problem (after reverting the link of course).

Last edited by hinrich (2009-12-20 23:12:13)

R00KIE · 2009-12-21 00:00:44

Glad I could save you from reinstalling Arch.

I've been there before .... twice.
Then I figured out that linking /lib64 to /lib to stop matlab complaining about some missing libraries was a terrible idea.

The "problem" should be with glibc, thats the package that owns the links inside /lib64, that what I figured out eventually.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-20 18:25:21

Upgrade broke complete system

#2 2009-12-20 20:06:40

Re: Upgrade broke complete system

#3 2009-12-20 23:10:01

Re: Upgrade broke complete system

#4 2009-12-21 00:00:44

Re: Upgrade broke complete system

Board footer