Re: [gentoo-user] moving /usr

["Mark Knecht" <markknecht@gmail.com>]

On 3/10/06, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/10/06, Sergio Polini <sp_rm_it@yahoo.it> wrote:
> > Mark Knecht:
> > > Well...I did my best, but it wasn't good enough. The machine no
> > > longer boots to any level that a user could use. I'm told there are
> > > lots of messages on the screen about being unable to find files.
> > > (/usr/bin, /usr/sbin sort of things...)
> >
> > That happened to me too ;-)
> > But the reason was quickly clear: I had deleted /usr instead
> > of /usr/*!
> > Remember:
>
> OK, so far I cannot get into the machine so I don't know how to double
> check that but I'm pretty sure I didn't do this.
>
> The issue in and around these instructions, for me was that:
>
> 1) I'm in a completely out of disk space situation
> 2) I'm trying to move /usr
> 3) /usr includes /usr/bin and /usr/sbin which is where all commands
> are to basically use the machine and make the changes. (mv, cp, ls and
> all the normal stuff.)
>
> so I
>
> 1) Copied everything to the new partition
> 2) Removed everything from the original /usr except /usr/bin and
> /usr/lib. The only copy of /usr/sbin is on the new partition. /usr/lib
> had to remain for me to use vim to edit fstab.
> 3) The new partition was labeled using e2label
> 4) fstab was edited to mount the new partition at the existing /usr
> direcotry which still contained /usr/bin and /usr/lib
> 5) As a backup, since I had removed most of /usr to create space I now
> made a new directory /usrBACKUP and placed a copy of what was left in
> /usr there so I could get to it if I needed to.
> 6) Unmounted /mnt/usr_temp and rebooted.
>
> The messages (I'm told over the phone by a 78 year old man who is hard
> of hearing) are in and around not being able to find /usr/sbin. I
> don't know what they really say as we didn't try to get that detailed.
>
> He has decided to ship the machine to me via FedEx and I'll have to
> fix it here when it arrives. He didn't want to mess with Knoppix or
> the Gentoo install disk as he felt it was way beyond what he could do.
>
> Again, thanks for the ideas below, but since the machine is 350 miles
> away it's hard to do the experiements below. I'll do them when it
> arrives next week.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
> >
> > > 9. delete the old /usr directory to free the unused space:
> > > cd /mnt/something/usr
> > > rm -rf *
> > > NB: do not delete /usr itself, just its contents, as /usr is the
> > > mount point for the new partition;
> >
> > Let us suppose that your /etc/fstab looks like:
> >
> > /dev/hda1 /boot <type> <opts> <dump/pass>
> > /dev/hda2 / <type> <opts> <dump/pass>
> > /dev/hda3 /usr <type> <opts> <dump/pass>
> >
> > The first and simplest try: reboot from a livecd, then:
> >
> > mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/something
> > ls /mnt/something/usr
> >
> > If /mnt/something/usr doesn't exist, then:
> >
> > mkdir /mnt/something/usr
> > reboot
> >
> > You could check that the new /usr partition is there, before
> > rebooting:
> >
> > mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/something_else
> > ls /mnt/something_else
> >
> > The old /usr contents should be there. Why not?
> > So, if your reboot doesn't work, reboot again from a livecd and
> > check /etc/fstab.
> >
> > Let me/us know!
> >
> > Sergio

Hi Sergio,
   OK, the machine arrived here about an hour ago overnight express.
It's now up and running. The mistake was mine, but I think it wasn't
something that was very clearly warned about in the online docs, or at
least I don't remember being warned about this.

   I created a new partition and copied all the information over. I
labeled the partition USR using e2label and then carefully copied an
existing line from elsewhere in the fstab file and changed the
specifics to mount the partition, or so I thought. When the machine
arrived here and I booted the new partition was not mounted, but I was
able to immediately mount it by hand. Inspecting the fstab file
quickly revealed that the line I had copied from elsewhere in the
fstab file had the options 'noauto,noatime' sort of line. I removed
noauto, rebooted, and the machine appears to be working fine.

   Since the machine is here I'll do a thorough set of updates and
hopefully get it shipped out again on Monday.

   Live and learn! Thanks for your help!

Thanks,
Mark

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