Arch Linux

AdamskiAirsoft

Member

Registered: 2006-07-24

Posts: 33

Read-only filesystem required management...

I have had a netbook with Arch Linux on it, and have used it at school and home without problems. This morning at home, I rebooted when I meant to poweroff. So I used the button to poweroff while it was booting back up.

At school, when I turned it on, I was told to enter the root password, so that I could manage/fix my file-system. It also told me my file-system was read-only, and I had to remount it. I rebooted my computer numerously through the day, but kept getting the same thing. [I'm too much of a newb to fix something like this without the internet.]

Now, when I just got home to get to fixing it, it worked/booted up fine (albeit with a forced file-system check). So, there's no real problem, I'm just concerned. I'm supposing this happened because I did a hard power off at a bad time?

jac

Member

From: /home/jac

Registered: 2009-05-19

Posts: 431

Website

Re: Read-only filesystem required management...

Yes, that could have caused it. Usually, when it tells you to do a fsck it is something simple and it will fix it. For example, having the clock reset to a different time may require a fsck.

I'm pretty sure that the message it gives you tells you about remounting it also explains how to do an fsck, don't be afraid to follow instructions without the internet.

Last edited by jac (2010-02-15 22:25:14)

pyther

Member

Registered: 2008-01-21

Posts: 1,395

Website

Re: Read-only filesystem required management...

If you have some time, read up on the linux boot process.

I will give a brief explanation, however I can't guarantee that the explanation is 100% correct. As you likely know the first step in the boot process is having the mbr load (grub) and then loading the kernel from a hard drive, flash drive, etc... Once the kernel loads the kernel needs to mount the root file system. The option 'ro' in grub.conf tells the kernel to mount the root file-system as read-only. Once this is done the boot process continues and then later on will remount root and mount your other filesystems as it is configured in etc fstab.

It is hard to say what was wrong with your system has you didn't provide any of the errors. Likely the fs had errors on it and it was having a hard time remount as rw.

If I was in your shoes I would have entered the root password and ran a fsck on the disk in question.

Hope this helps clarify things a bit.

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