Arch Linux

Zauber Paracelsus

Member

Registered: 2012-02-01

Posts: 10

Home directory missing after bootup

Twice so far in the last month, my computer's home directory was missing after a reboot, which made it impossible or glitchy to login under my normal user account.  The solution so far for me has to use mkdir to recreate the home directory and then manually mount the home partition to it.

But what is causing this problem, and how do I prevent it?  I have never had this happen to me before in the 6-7 years I've been using Linux.

SolarBoyMatt

Member

Registered: 2012-01-07

Posts: 263

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

It's hard to tell without at least seeing your fstab first. Have you seen any boot messages saying anything about failing to mount your home partition?

Zauber Paracelsus

Member

Registered: 2012-02-01

Posts: 10

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

No, I haven't looked yet, and the boot messages tend to scroll by too fast for me to read them.

And here's my fstab:

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>	<dir>	<type>	<options>	<dump>	<pass>
# /dev/sda2
UUID=e5b59817-7a98-42d5-8293-2b53494f6137	/         	ext4      	rw,relatime,data=ordered	0 1

# /dev/sda1
UUID=70b07496-0c3d-4b8c-aaf0-522e044ca01e	/boot     	ext2      	rw,relatime	0 2

# /dev/sda3
UUID=e5114eeb-e1f4-449a-9075-6591f5dd9050	/home     	ext4      	rw,relatime,data=ordered	0 2

SolarBoyMatt

Member

Registered: 2012-01-07

Posts: 263

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

I've never really delved into editing my fstab beyond the basics so I could be missing something, but is there any reason you're not using the "defaults" option or even the "auto" option? And you can use journalctl to check the boot logs.

Last edited by SolarBoyMatt (2013-05-15 15:08:45)

Zauber Paracelsus

Member

Registered: 2012-02-01

Posts: 10

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

I have no idea to be honest, and if they're not there, it's because they weren't added by the Arch Linux installer.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

I've never really delved into editing my fstab beyond the basics so I could be missing something, but is there any reason you're not using the "defaults" option or even the "auto" option?

I am pretty sure that if you use genfstab, that is more or less what you'll end up with.  I honestly don't think that this has anything to do with the layout of your fstab.  You could change the fstype to auto if you so please, but it is of no consequence.  The only possible fault in your fstab is that you use data=ordered.  Though this is indeed the setting in ext4, the option is only given if using ext3.  You can see this in mount(8).  But I have seen so many people with it in their fstab, who seem to have working systems, that I don't think that this should be causeing a problem either.

I think you will really have to provide more information.  Like possibly what you might have been doing when you did this, or if there is anything of signifcance in the logs.  Also, do your disks pass SMART?  There is the very remote possibility that this could be one of the first symptoms of a failing disk.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,692

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

Next time it happens, log in as root.  $HOME for root is not under /home, so should not see the same problem.  From there, explore what volumes are mounted, and which ones are not.

There have been a few posts over the last couple days where the systemd mount service failed because something fails to mount.  It looks as if it bails at the first sign of trouble, leaving other volumes that were to have been mounted after the failed volume unmounted.  It may also be that something that the mount service wants failed.

Long story short, when it happens again, log in as root, see what is mounted, see what services failed to start using systemctl.

---

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Zauber Paracelsus

Member

Registered: 2012-02-01

Posts: 10

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

Thanks ewaller, I'll check that out the next time it happens.

Zauber Paracelsus

Member

Registered: 2012-02-01

Posts: 10

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

The problem is happening consistently on every reboot now.  This morning, I remembered to run systemctl.  It revealed no problems at first, until I used the --all flag, which revealed that several services were down:

auditd.service             error  inactive dead      auditd.service
plymouth-quit-wait.service error  inactive dead      plymouth-quit-wait.service
plymouth-start.service     error  inactive dead      plymouth-start.service
syslog.service             error  inactive dead      syslog.service
runlevel1.target           error  inactive dead      runlevel1.target
runlevel2.target           error  inactive dead      runlevel2.target
runlevel3.target           error  inactive dead      runlevel3.target
runlevel4.target           error  inactive dead      runlevel4.target
runlevel5.target           error  inactive dead      runlevel5.target
syslog.target              error  inactive dead      syslog.target

EDIT: In particular, I noticed the last one, syslog, being down.  When I went to check the system logs, I noticed that ones such as kernel.log were missing.

Last edited by Zauber Paracelsus (2013-05-22 12:44:27)

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

We don't use syslog anymore, as systemd provides logging functionality with the journal.  All those services are not actually installed on your machine so there is no expectation that they should be running.

The runlevels are there to make some kind of backwards compatibility with the old SysV setup.  But we actually don't realy usethose with systemd.  Instead we have the multi-user.target and graphical.target and emergency.target, etc. 

Also the fact that they are "dead" doesn't mean what you think it does.  A process can be dead also if it is, for example, a Type=oneshot.  This type of service just runs a series of commands and exits.  So once it exits it is.... dead.  You should be concerned if you see a bunch of "failed" serivces.

Zauber Paracelsus

Member

Registered: 2012-02-01

Posts: 10

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

I didn't see anything that said "Failed", except for getty on TTY1.  That, however, was only on my previous session, and it no longer shows now.

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

So from reading the first post, all your persona data stays in tact.  It is really just /home that is disapprearing, making the partition that holds you $HOME not mountable.  Is this correct?

If so, you can try to "set" the directory as immutable.  Of course you can't set a directory as immutable because you couldn't write anything to it.  So instead, create something like /home/.test with the home partition unmounted.  Then do "sudo chattr +i /home/.test".  In theory, since the /home/.test cannot be removed, so too the directory is there to stay as well.  Then of course, your real home partition will be mounted at /home, covering up that .test file and making everything look normal.

Honestly, I don't know what else to tell you otherwise.

Zauber Paracelsus

Member

Registered: 2012-02-01

Posts: 10

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

Okay, I am very much NOT a happy camper today.

I did a system update earlier and then and rebooted.  On bootup, networking was hosed, half my USB devices wouldn't work (I had to reboot two more times just to get keyboard input), I had no graphical environment, and most of the daemons in /etc/rc.d were completely gone.  I was almost having a panic attack because I had thought my motherboard was dying (thankfully that wasn't true).

I had already been looking to switch to another distro because of this problem and others: random freezes during shutdown or suspend, massive CPU/RAM usage on login, random crashes with lm_sensors, and other stability problems.

I can't say the benefits of Arch Linux are worth the increasing trouble.  Prior to the adoption of SystemD, I hardly had any major problems with my system.  With SystemD, stability has gotten progressively worse for me.  Windows XP gave me less trouble than this, and I had switched to Linux *because* of my problems with Windows XP!

So, I backed up my files, wiped the hard drive, and installed Linux Mint.  I don't have the patience for the "bleeding edge" anymore.

skunktrader

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2010-02-14

Posts: 1,680

Re: Home directory missing after bootup

If you are actually using systemd then the contents of /etc/rc.d should not be relevant