Red Hat Topics - Heads Up! FC3 Rescue CD cripples older distribs (Restore possible?)

Author

Heads Up! FC3 Rescue CD cripples older distribs (Restore possible?)

Andrew

2005-04-23, 5:46 pm

yes, I know I shouldn't have taken the chance, but i did.

I tried to repair an old RedHat 7.1 (Seawolf) system (kernel 2.4.2)
that wouldn't boot (would hang at "Updating fstab"), by using my FC3
rescue CD (the only rescue utility availabe at that moment).

The consequence was that when I now try to boot into the 7.1 system,
the boot stops even sooner, with a new error:

Checking root filesystem
fsck.ext2: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) (/dev/hda7)
e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck!

*** An error occurred during the file system check
*** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
*** when you leave the shell.

.... etc...

The "extra features", it seems, where "installed" when I booted into
FC3 Rescue mode, which mounted all the partitions (none of which are
ext3). I don't know what these extra features are and if it's possible
to remove them.

First, a grumble: I realize the OS mismatch, but something that calls
itself "a rescue CD" should have been designed with extra precautions
to avoid damage to mismatched systems

Second, a call for help: Is it possible to correct my old seawolf?
Would it suffice to get a newer version of e2fsck, like the error
message suggests? And where would I get a binary of the new one, for
RH7.1 (2.4.2) or how could I compile one using my new Fedora?

(I have a few valuable progs and custom setups on this system I would
like to work with before scrapping it)

TIA
andrew

General Schvantzkoph

2005-04-23, 5:46 pm

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 09:15:54 -0700, Andrew wrote:

> yes, I know I shouldn't have taken the chance, but i did.
>
> I tried to repair an old RedHat 7.1 (Seawolf) system (kernel 2.4.2)
> that wouldn't boot (would hang at "Updating fstab"), by using my FC3
> rescue CD (the only rescue utility availabe at that moment).
>
> The consequence was that when I now try to boot into the 7.1 system,
> the boot stops even sooner, with a new error:
>
> Checking root filesystem
> fsck.ext2: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) (/dev/hda7)
> e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck!
>
> *** An error occurred during the file system check
> *** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
> *** when you leave the shell.
>
> ... etc...
>
> The "extra features", it seems, where "installed" when I booted into
> FC3 Rescue mode, which mounted all the partitions (none of which are
> ext3). I don't know what these extra features are and if it's possible
> to remove them.
>
> First, a grumble: I realize the OS mismatch, but something that calls
> itself "a rescue CD" should have been designed with extra precautions
> to avoid damage to mismatched systems
>
> Second, a call for help: Is it possible to correct my old seawolf?
> Would it suffice to get a newer version of e2fsck, like the error
> message suggests? And where would I get a binary of the new one, for
> RH7.1 (2.4.2) or how could I compile one using my new Fedora?
>
> (I have a few valuable progs and custom setups on this system I would
> like to work with before scrapping it)
>
> TIA
> andrew

Why don't you just upgrade the system to FC3? 7.1 is incredibly old, it
hasn't been supported for years.

Lenard

2005-04-23, 5:46 pm

Andrew wrote:

> yes, I know I shouldn't have taken the chance, but i did.
>
> I tried to repair an old RedHat 7.1 (Seawolf) system (kernel 2.4.2)
> that wouldn't boot (would hang at "Updating fstab"), by using my FC3
> rescue CD (the only rescue utility availabe at that moment).

Do you still have the old Red Hat Linux 7.1 installation CD???

You could have and should have used this instead, from;

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/lin...6/RELEASE-NOTES

Improved Rescue Mode -- Rescue mode now attempts to mount the
filesystems listed in /etc/fstab (assuming the root filesystem can be
found). The filesystems are mounted under /mnt/sysimage. This
eliminates a very confusing step for users using rescue-mode for the
first time.

And yes the ISO's for Seawolf are still available;

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.1/en/iso/i386/

> The consequence was that when I now try to boot into the 7.1 system,
> the boot stops even sooner, with a new error:
>
> Checking root filesystem
> fsck.ext2: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) (/dev/hda7)
> e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck!
>
> *** An error occurred during the file system check
> *** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
> *** when you leave the shell.
>
> ... etc...
>
> The "extra features", it seems, where "installed" when I booted into
> FC3 Rescue mode, which mounted all the partitions (none of which are
> ext3). I don't know what these extra features are and if it's possible
> to remove them.
>
> First, a grumble: I realize the OS mismatch, but something that calls
> itself "a rescue CD" should have been designed with extra precautions
> to avoid damage to mismatched systems
>
> Second, a call for help: Is it possible to correct my old seawolf?
> Would it suffice to get a newer version of e2fsck, like the error
> message suggests? And where would I get a binary of the new one, for
> RH7.1 (2.4.2) or how could I compile one using my new Fedora?

Bring your system current by installing all the updates for what you
currently have installed by visiting;

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/lin...ates/7.1/en/os/

or visit someplace like http://freshrpms.net/ and let apt do the work
for you. http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/redhat/7.1/apt/

>
> (I have a few valuable progs and custom setups on this system I would
> like to work with before scrapping it)

As others have already said, maybe it's time you consider upgrading.

--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- B. Franklin, 1759

Spamless

2005-04-24, 2:45 am

On 2005-04-23, Andrew <seawolf@scssi.org> wrote:
> yes, I know I shouldn't have taken the chance, but i did.
>
> I tried to repair an old RedHat 7.1 (Seawolf) system (kernel 2.4.2)
> that wouldn't boot (would hang at "Updating fstab"), by using my FC3
> rescue CD (the only rescue utility availabe at that moment).
>
> The consequence was that when I now try to boot into the 7.1 system,
> the boot stops even sooner, with a new error:

Use a Knoppix disk (or other live CD with rescue features or even
Fedora in rescue mode), unmount the 7.1 partition (it is not a
good idea to run fsck on a mounted partition) and run fsck.ext2
(e2fsck - check a Linux ext2/ext3 file system), fsck on it?

>
> Checking root filesystem
> fsck.ext2: Filesystem has unsupported feature(s) (/dev/hda7)
> e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck!
>
> *** An error occurred during the file system check
> *** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot
> *** when you leave the shell.
>
> ... etc...

One thing. Have you tried rebooting to the 7.1 since you got
that error?

seawolf@scssi.org

2005-04-24, 2:51 pm

Thanks for all the replies

I forgot to emphasize that this is not mission-critical repair, but
would be nice. I returned to this seawolf of mine for the first time
in years, in order to upgrade it, and also because it is a "time
capsule," a "diary" of my endeavors from several years ago, with some
unfinished projects. But, as i shared in the inital post, I could not
even boot it, to begin to upgrade it. (Had planned to install apt,
etc.)

(Another motivation to post this was to warn others about this
version-mismatch damage)

As Lenard suggests, I could probably upgrade to a newer e2fsck (using
the package e2fsprogs-1.26-1.71.i386.rpm ), although it's dated
3/05/2002, so it may not be new enough to do the trick (will try it).

Yes, I have tried rebooting to the 7.1. Now, when i boot into the 7.1,
(as i tried to convey in the first post) the boot fails even sooner,
with the new error message about the outdated e2fsck (which is the crux
of my posting).

So, to clarify things: 1) I haven't been able to boot into the 7.1
since a few years ago and 2) as a result of the FC3 rescue CD, the boot
failure is now worse, with the additional malfunction caused by the FC3
rescue.

As far as using the newer e2fsck to check for errors - i have done so.
But that does not do me any good, since 7.1's complaint, at boot, is
that there are fs features with which its own e2fsk cannot deal. (These
features, it appears, were the unwanted "gift" of the FC3 rescue boot)

At any rate, i'll continue to research and tinker. Perhaps try to use
the original rescue CD, and/or use the FC3 rescue (which continues to
work), to install apt-get and other things.

thanks again for the help!

andrew

Spamless

2005-04-24, 2:51 pm

On 2005-04-24, seawolf@scssi.org <seawolf@scssi.org> wrote:

> I forgot to emphasize that this is not mission-critical repair, but
> would be nice. I returned to this seawolf of mine for the first time
> in years, in order to upgrade it, and also because it is a "time
> capsule," a "diary" of my endeavors from several years ago, with some
> unfinished projects. But, as i shared in the inital post, I could not
> even boot it, to begin to upgrade it. (Had planned to install apt,
> etc.)

If you use a live CD, can you at least mount the partition (to access
the old projects)? Can you use debugfs from Knopix, say and dumpe2fs?
Can you mount and edit the boot configuration files?

If there is a transient, unimportant bug in the filesystem on the root
partition, RedHat/Fedora seem to give a horrible error message and
refuse to boot. That happened to me with Kernel 2.6 in a slightly
older (2.0?) version of Gimp whose bug was that it did not recognize
the limit on the UNDO file size. I used a script (took awhile,
did a lot) and got a 6Gig swap file in /tmp. Removed it.
Rebooting got a horrible error message that I had to fix the file
system - so I rebooted and all was well

(The problem is that the filesystem had no entry for large
files, but when one is created got:

Large files in use:
Number of Large Files: 1

When I deleted the large file

Large files in use:
Number of Large files: 0

and fsck flagged that as an error - how could Large files
be in use if there are no large files?

If the error occurs on ANOTHER partition, not the boot partition,
then a boot gets, not OK for the file system, but PASSED.
On the boot partition, the startup scripts just won't allow a boot
if there is anything fishy.

In that case, the first boot had the error, but rebooting set
the drive to recognize that there were no large files in use.

It may be, again, a case of a problem which is not critical,
just some ext3 features added to the ext2 system but RedHat's
startup scripts refusing to give you accss.)

Perhaps, from a LiveCD, tune2fs (-O option) to clear the "has_journal"
feature?

In Fedora Core 2, /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit has the code

# A return of 2 or higher means there were serious problems.
if [ $rc -gt 1 ]; then
if [ -x /usr/bin/rhgb-client ] && /usr/bin/rhgb-client --ping ; then
chvt 1
fi

failure "$STRING"
echo
echo
echo $"*** An error occurred during the file system check."
echo $"*** Dropping you to a shell; the system will reboot"
echo $"*** when you leave the shell."

str=$"(Repair filesystem)"
PS1="$str \# # "; export PS1
[ "$SELINUX" = "1" ] && disable_selinux
sulogin

echo $"Unmounting file systems"
umount -a
mount -n -o remount,ro /
echo $"Automatic reboot in progress."
reboot -f
elif [ "$rc" = "1" ]; then
_RUN_QUOTACHECK=1
fi

which blocks access if fsck shows just about any error on the root
filesystem.

But ... can you get access to the partition to do any work on it
(can you mount it in some LiveCD)?