system boots into read-only mode after updating glibc & filesystem

paulbarbee · 2013-01-27 07:16:42

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help me!

I noticed that glibc and filesystem would not update because /lib64 existed. I looked at the latest news section and realized it was probably an AUR package holding the update up but I decided to update the rest of the packages and reboot. I updated bash and then the system said it couldn't find /usr/bin/ls. I rebooted and there was a kernel panic because it couldn't find sbin/init. Rebooted using a live CD, unpacked glibc and filesystem and hand copied the files. The system now boots but with many failures in the terminal output. The ones at the end at least say "Failed to start system logger daemon. See 'systemctl status syslog-ng.service' for details. After that it starts a few more services ok and then says "systemd-update-utmp[996]: Failed to write utmp record: Read-only file system" twice.

I can login as root without a password and remount the system r/w. Systemctl brings up 3 failed services: polkit.service, syslog-ng.service and systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service. I can start systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service, which starts syslog-ng. Interestingly I cannot start polkit.

I reinstalled glibc and forced filesystem because /lib has to exist for the system to boot. I've since reinstalled glibc, filesystem, bash and mkinitcpio but the system still only boots in read-only mode and with the 3 failed services.

I am at my wit's end as far as what to try next. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

gay · 2013-01-30 09:29:00

hi,

I am no expert on systemd, but since nobody else is responding I thought I could at least point you to this link http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux. … vel/309910 where someone had a very similar problem. People there suggested he/she should start "with systemd.log_level=debug sysemd.log_target=kmsg systemd.unit=rescue.target"

apparently the system was mounted rw in rescue mode, but the outputs of mount and /proc/mount conflicted and the problem was not solved. from the attached log I cannot tell what the initial problem was but it seems a process is started to remount / rw but dies when a childprocess dies...

I realize that this will not solve your problem but maybe the hints in that link bring you a little closer to a solution

pierissimo · 2013-01-31 11:43:51

Same issue here.... no solution found

paulbarbee · 2013-02-01 07:55:08

I had to re-install Grub due to installing Windows on the machine and noticed that the end of the kernel string had ro splach on it. I changed that to rw and it eliminated most of the errors but still left me with a system that root logs into without a password. I then tried "systemd.log_level=debug sysemd.log_target=kmsg systemd.unit=rescue.target" and it provided nothing except some errors in error.log. I suspect this was because the filesystem was read--only.

I also noticed there were errors with the locale saying "no such file or directory." Googling that led me to believe that is a problem related to glibc. I tried

localectl set-locale LANG="en_GB.UTF8"

and got "Error getting authority: Error initializing authority: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.Policykit1 GDBus Error: or,freedesktop.DBus.Error.TimedOut Activation of .org.freedesktop.Policykit1 timed out (g-dbus-error-quark, 20)."

I may try re-installing all packages tomorrow. Thank you for your help!

Last edited by paulbarbee (2013-02-01 07:56:19)

paulbarbee · 2013-02-02 00:46:37

I tried re-installing all packages and that did not help. I tried using "systemd.log_level=debug sysemd.log_target=kmsg systemd.unit=rescue.target" and rw on the kernel line in Grub and everything went okay until I typed "systemctl default." Looking at /etc/groups and /etc/passwd showed the system had no polkitd user or group. Adding these had no effect. The system also had no non-root regular user except xbmc. The regular user, I.E. paul, which is my standard login did not exist.

I'm fairly sure this was something simple such as missing a user or permissions but I'm re-installing because I haven't figured it out. Thank you everyone who read and tried to help me!

gay · 2013-02-03 20:00:13

oops ... did you say, you unpacked new glibc and filesystem packages in your first post?

$ pacman -Qo /etc/passwd
/etc/passwd is owned by filesystem 2012.12-1

I guess this explains the missing users.

how did you create the polkitd user & group? other threads such as this one https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1187801 suggest that the gid & uid of polkitd is important and needs to be 102 ... at least if I didn't misunderstand anything ... which means 'useradd polkitd' and 'groupadd polkitd' will not do.
if this is the reason for your problems, I'd suggest you should reinstall polkit; it should care for creating the group and user with the correct ids ... and its very possible that a number of other groups and users are also missing from your /etc/passwd and your system now ... it might be that you have to reinstall a number of packages.

Last edited by gay (2013-02-03 20:09:53)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-01-27 07:16:42

system boots into read-only mode after updating glibc & filesystem

#2 2013-01-30 09:29:00

Re: system boots into read-only mode after updating glibc & filesystem

#3 2013-01-31 11:43:51

Re: system boots into read-only mode after updating glibc & filesystem

#4 2013-02-01 07:55:08

Re: system boots into read-only mode after updating glibc & filesystem

#5 2013-02-02 00:46:37

Re: system boots into read-only mode after updating glibc & filesystem

#6 2013-02-03 20:00:13

Re: system boots into read-only mode after updating glibc & filesystem

Board footer