Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

deteego · 2013-09-30 13:50:40

I have just done a full update on pacman, and now my system is not booting due to this message

systemd[1]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-gpt-auto-generator exited with status 127

Does anyone know what is causing this, and what a status code of 127 means?

Last edited by deteego (2013-09-30 13:53:42)

Awebb · 2013-09-30 13:59:46

Do you have an /etc/fstab?

deteego · 2013-09-30 14:14:34

I read this thread https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1330641, and moved my fstab to fstab.bkp, made no difference (so no, I dont have a /etc/fstab)

teateawhy · 2013-09-30 19:19:53

On my system i get a very similar error message (with "status 1" instead of status "127"), but it boots properly.

Sep 30 19:18:56 thinkpad systemd[1]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-gpt-auto-generator exited with exit status 1.

I think the solution is to write a correct /etc/fstab , because the mounts specified in fstab override the auto-generator .

deteego · 2013-09-30 22:48:50

teateawhy wrote:

On my system i get a very similar error message (with "status 1" instead of status "127"), but it boots properly.
Sep 30 19:18:56 thinkpad systemd[1]: /usr/lib/systemd/system-generators/systemd-gpt-auto-generator exited with exit status 1.
I think the solution is to write a correct /etc/fstab , because the mounts specified in fstab override the auto-generator .

Well it was working completely fine, and my fstab just has one single line in it which loads a single partition that is my archlinux os

Is there something that will tell me what the status codes means?

cfr · 2013-09-30 23:06:12

Post fstab and the output of gdisk -l /dev/sdX (or fdisk -l but I'm assuming you are using GPT).

Daerandin · 2013-09-30 23:24:40

I don't understand how you got the idea of not having fstab from that topic. The topic you link to describes commenting out your swap from fstab, if you have one. Can you boot if you restore your fstab?

Also, you really should tell us what packages were updated, because saying you did a full update does not tell us what was updated.

2ManyDogs · 2013-09-30 23:29:23

Daerandin wrote:

I don't understand how you got the idea of not having fstab from that topic.

Maybe from this post in that topic where karol says:

karol wrote:

systemd 207 makes fstab optional

and references this topic.

Daerandin · 2013-09-30 23:46:01

Apologies, I seem to have skipped over that. Still, I would like to know if OP have attempted to boot with fstab or not.

cfr · 2013-09-30 23:47:40

Well the OP said that moving fstab to fstab.bkup made no difference so I assume the problem began with fstab and that getting rid of fstab was an attempt to solve the problem, albeit an unsuccessful one.

deteego · 2013-10-01 02:42:24

cfr wrote:

Post fstab and the output of gdisk -l /dev/sdX (or fdisk -l but I'm assuming you are using GPT).

fstab is here https://gist.github.com/mdedetrich/a2976f1c618d51a0c74e

gdisk is here https://gist.github.com/mdedetrich/2017fcb5d33023ccd1bb

Daerandin wrote:

Apologies, I seem to have skipped over that. Still, I would like to know if OP have attempted to boot with fstab or not.

fstab originally existed on my OS before the pacman upgrade. After the upgrade I got the error message mentioned above (and obviously the fstab was there since I didn't touch it). Then after reading that linked topic (where a similar error message was the cause of systems not booting due to a fstab), I deleted the fstab (or more accurately, moved it somewhere else)

Last edited by deteego (2013-10-01 02:51:08)

WonderWoofy · 2013-10-01 02:52:09

Did you do gdisk -l /dev/sda2? Because that would be attempting to print partition information from… a partition. Please post the output of gdisk -l /dev/sda.

deteego · 2013-10-01 03:38:03

WonderWoofy wrote:

Did you do gdisk -l /dev/sda2? Because that would be attempting to print partition information from… a partition. Please post the output of gdisk -l /dev/sda.

Yeah I updated the post, check the new gist here https://gist.github.com/mdedetrich/2017fcb5d33023ccd1bb

WonderWoofy · 2013-10-01 04:18:43

This has nothing to do with your problem (though it might actually fix it), but you should know that btrfs is capable of spanning a whole disk. Well, that is a lie, it spans nearly the whole disk leaving a space in the beginning for a MBR bootloader. It is actually enough space such that grub can be installed to the beginning of the disk without the need for that EF02 "BIOS boot partition". I actually have this set up on my system as a backup solution to UEFI. Doing it this way will actually do away with any kind of partition table, so on my system the systemd-gpt-generator doesn't run at all.

Of course, implementing this would mean that you would have to jump through some hoops to implement it. You could either reinstall, or you could move all the data off, recreate the filesystem on /dev/sda (instead of /dev/sda2), then move the data back.

So as mentioned above, I don't have this problem, nor does the generator in question doing anything at all on my system. So unfortunately I cannot offer any real help here. But since you are venturing into the world of btrfs, I just thought you might be interested in some of the neat things it can do.

deteego · 2013-10-01 04:49:31

WonderWoofy wrote:

This has nothing to do with your problem (though it might actually fix it), but you should know that btrfs is capable of spanning a whole disk. Well, that is a lie, it spans nearly the whole disk leaving a space in the beginning for a MBR bootloader. It is actually enough space such that grub can be installed to the beginning of the disk without the need for that EF02 "BIOS boot partition". I actually have this set up on my system as a backup solution to UEFI. Doing it this way will actually do away with any kind of partition table, so on my system the systemd-gpt-generator doesn't run at all.

Thats handy to know, and I might end up doing that (especially since I got my NAS so I can backup the data onto that)

However for now, I just want to get my system to boot. I have no idea why it suddenly stopped working after a pacman upgrade

WonderWoofy · 2013-10-01 05:01:37

You might try to downgrade systemd while you try to work things out. One of the fancy fun things about btrfs is that you can simply snapshot what you've got there, then downgrade systemd to get it booting, and then you still have the fully up to date snapshot to work on and test.

Awebb · 2013-10-01 13:36:11

Unfortunately, the sourcecode of gpt-auto-generator.c wasn't very informative about state 127 (as in no mention), so I guess the answer is in one of the libraries. I am unfortunately a little too lazy to come up with an idea how to grep through all the systemd tarball to find your error code 127, but maybe you just do that: Download the 207 tarball (see the PKGBUILD on the package site of systemd or use ABS) and grep through it to find this state 127. If you can't read Dothraki C++, post the file name you found it in.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-09-30 13:50:40

Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#2 2013-09-30 13:59:46

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#3 2013-09-30 14:14:34

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#4 2013-09-30 19:19:53

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#5 2013-09-30 22:48:50

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#6 2013-09-30 23:06:12

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#7 2013-09-30 23:24:40

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#8 2013-09-30 23:29:23

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#9 2013-09-30 23:46:01

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#10 2013-09-30 23:47:40

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#11 2013-10-01 02:42:24

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#12 2013-10-01 02:52:09

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#13 2013-10-01 03:38:03

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#14 2013-10-01 04:18:43

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#15 2013-10-01 04:49:31

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#16 2013-10-01 05:01:37

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

#17 2013-10-01 13:36:11

Re: Pacman -Syu update, System not booting due to systemd

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