Geek Pop Quiz.

[theweaselking]

Debian 6 server. Worked fine before, now it won't boot. It hangs on "using makefile-style concurrent boot in runlevel S".

I cannot boot into single user mode. It crashes at the same point.
I can't boot into an earlier kernel - this is the only one on the machine.
I *can* boot to a liveCD, but from there I don't know what to do to switch to the older-style boot (I can't just take the CONCURRENT line out of /etc/default/rcS because it's not there), or even if that's going to help.

Suggestions?

Comments

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Single-user-mode via the "rescue" (or whatever it's called) grub menu item, or real single-user mode via 'init=/bin/bash'?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Both.

Both fail in the same way, in the same place.

(I added "init=/bin/bash" to the end of the grub boot line, in the same place that you'd normally put "single" to go into single user mode. Is there a different way?)

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Nah, that way is fine.

Your problem has just gotten interesting.cn - might I suggest going over to debian-user@l.d.o?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually on site with that machine again until wednesday. I'll try that if no epiphanies hit overnight.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Interesting indeed. Wouldn't this imply that "init=/bin/bash" is getting ignored?

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yes.

My understanding is that:
1. kernel
2. initrd stuff
3. init
4. rest

But I've not looked at new-ish Debilian Linuxes in anger in some time.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

There wouldn't happen to be another init= parameter on the kernel command line already, would there?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

There was not, unless I'm completely blind. I'm not onsite with that machine any more, though.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

PS: Assume I'm an idiot and I can get in using init=/bin/bash

What then? Because even if I'm doing it wrong, booting to a LiveCD gets me root access to the file system, and I can make the changes from there. I just don't know what changes to make.

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

Bitrot in /bin/bash? From your boot CD, take an md5sum of it and then forcibly reinstall it from the apt cache and take another, see what happens?

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Late and useless reply: from there I would need to look at the init scripts and see what happens after that message and how it could get stuck.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

As it turns out: I'm not an idiot, getting in with init=/bin/bash didn't work, and it turns out that wiping the machine and imaging it from production is much simpler than troubleshooting further.

So I did that: Fresh OS install, application install, data sync, everything's working and computers are stupid.