You are not logged in.

#1 2010-04-06 13:08:55

tpfkanep
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2009-12-15
Posts: 121

powering off and "losing" home folder?

Running arch in Virtualbox (3.1.6) on XP. I am on the verge of finally commiting to install on my HDD, but I am not so sure:
- I power off the VM from VB (click the [X] and choose "Power off the machine" option.
- CLI login and this message is displayed "No directory, logging in with HOME=/".
- I just cannot find my home/username folder. It's as if the user folder never existed. I even tried to find it with root login: but no luck. There is just an empty home folder.

I am using jfs.

Are the above VM related?

Offline

#2 2010-04-06 13:18:00

tawan
Member
Registered: 2010-03-02
Posts: 290
Website

Re: powering off and "losing" home folder?

man that could be one of several things - all the ones I can think of relate to the VM - never seen/heard of this in Arch normal.

Offline

#3 2010-04-06 13:21:00

tawan
Member
Registered: 2010-03-02
Posts: 290
Website

Re: powering off and "losing" home folder?

actually on googling your error message it is a Linux issue.

It is sort of saying there is no /home so it's going to use / until one is set up for that user.

Offline

#4 2010-04-06 13:24:31

Endperform
Member
From: Atlanta GA, USA
Registered: 2007-09-04
Posts: 94
Website

Re: powering off and "losing" home folder?

Is /home a separate partition?  If so, is it listed in /etc/fstab?  If it's separate and not listed in fstab, it's not being mounted and that would be the problem.  I don't know how your partitions are set up, so this is just a guess.

Offline

#5 2010-04-06 13:34:32

tpfkanep
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2009-12-15
Posts: 121

Re: powering off and "losing" home folder?

home is a separate partition.

Here is the /home entry in fstab:
/dev/sda5 /home jfs defaults,noatime 0 1

I can see the /home folder, but the home folder is empty.

The /home folder's contents seem to be deleted when I powerdown the VM by clicking the [X] and choosing "Power off the machine" from Virtualbox.

Edit:
I logged in as root and ran: shutdown -h -F now, started the VM: I now see my home folder with all its contents.

Is this normal procedure if there was a power failure/hard power down with arch?

Last edited by tpfkanep (2010-04-06 13:40:04)

Offline

#6 2010-04-06 15:41:51

toad
Member
From: if only I knew
Registered: 2008-12-22
Posts: 1,775
Website

Re: powering off and "losing" home folder?

check permissions?


never trust a toad...
::Grateful ArchDonor::
::Grateful Wikipedia Donor::

Offline

#7 2010-04-07 05:34:12

tpfkanep
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2009-12-15
Posts: 121

Re: powering off and "losing" home folder?

What permissions?

1] Is it normal for arch to not mount a partition (in this case /home) if there was a power failure -or- hard power down?
2] Did I follow the correct procedure by running shutdown -h -F now when I could not see the contents of /home? On every boot I see arch does a Filesystem check. Why did this bootup check not fix /home, but a -F parameter in the shutdown I ran seemd to have fixed /home?

Offline

#8 2010-04-08 04:33:40

toad
Member
From: if only I knew
Registered: 2008-12-22
Posts: 1,775
Website

Re: powering off and "losing" home folder?

Well, I suppose let's start at the wall - never really a bad thing to to...

a) make sure there is a separate partition
b) make sure fstab knows that there is a ~  to mount

You've already tried b, what about a?

The thing with root and home is that its path is quite different and cannot therefore be used for testing purposes.

As for permissions - change to /home and check the lay of the land.


never trust a toad...
::Grateful ArchDonor::
::Grateful Wikipedia Donor::

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB