Bug 32583

Summary:	System becomes unusable after performing disk operations using /stand/sysinstall
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	Mike Jakubik <mikej>
Component:	conf	Assignee:	jkh
Status:	Closed FIXED
Severity:	Affects Only Me
Priority:	Normal
Version:	4.4-RELEASE
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description Mike Jakubik 2001-12-07 17:40:00 UTC

After using /stand/sysinstall to create a file system and partitions, the system practically ceases to exist. Commands are reported as not found, cd reports not found as well. New processes can not start, system becomes unusable and unstable. Soft reboot procedure is unable to complete properly (panics), data loss may occur. This can be a very serious problem when an admin attempts to do some disk configuration on a live system.

How-To-Repeat: System is an Intel D815EEA2 Desktop Board, 850Mhz Celeron CPU, 256MB RAM. Tested with an IBM and Seagate 20 gig hd. ad0 == root hd, ad2 == blank, unmounted hd.

/stand/sysinstall
Configure
Fdisk
ad2
A)ll
S)et bootable
W)rite
Standard
Quit, Cancel, Cancel, Exit

/stand/sysinstall
Configure
Label
ad2
C, 512M, Swap
C, <default values with remainder of drive>, FS, /
W)rite, Y
Quit, Cancel, Cancel, Exit

root@qos:~# ls
bash: ls: command not found

root@qos:~# uname -a
bash: /usr/bin/uname: No such file or directory

root@qos:~# cd /usr/bin
bash: cd: /usr/bin: No such file or directory

root@qos:~# echo *
*

Comment 1 Mike Jakubik 2001-12-07 20:04:32 UTC

Ok, this was a stupid one. It seems the sysinstall program automatically
mounts what you have created. This was a user error, however the program
should do some sanity checks, and not allow any remounting, specially on /.

Comment 2 Mike Jakubik 2001-12-07 20:19:44 UTC

Also, it would be nice to add some functionality that allows one to create a
partition without specifying a mount point (or not to mount automatically),
and the ability to specify the partition name (as the mount point seems to
affect this).

Thanks.

Comment 3 Sheldon Hearn freebsd_committer

2001-12-10 11:09:03 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->jkh

Jordan is busy in this area.

Comment 4 hiten pandya 2002-03-07 00:20:43 UTC

Does this problem still occur with bug fixes from RELENG_4_4_0 or
with the newer 4.5 version of FreeBSD?

-- 
 - Hiten Pandya
 - <hiten@uk.FreeBSD.org>

Comment 5 Mike Jakubik 2002-03-07 18:39:34 UTC

I have not tried yet on newer releases, and i don't currently have the
resources to do so. I will let you know the next time i get a chance to do
this.

Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: Hiten Pandya [mailto:hitmaster2k@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 7:21 PM
To: freebsd-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org; mikej@trigger.net
Subject: Re: conf/32583: System becomes unusable after performing disk
operations using /stand/sysinstall
Importance: High

Does this problem still occur with bug fixes from RELENG_4_4_0 or
with the newer 4.5 version of FreeBSD?

--
 - Hiten Pandya
 - <hiten@uk.FreeBSD.org>

Comment 6 Mike Jakubik 2002-04-02 16:10:41 UTC

Hello,

	I have gotten a chance to test this again, and unfortunately the problem
remains. After creating a label (on a live system, using /stand/sysinstall)
which is mounted on / on another drive, sysinstall will remount / to the new
drive after exiting leaving the system totally dead.

Tested on:

FreeBSD wettoast.net 4.5-STABLE FreeBSD 4.5-STABLE #0: Mon Mar 18 22:10:22
EST 2002     root@wettoast.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/DP  i386

Thanks.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hiten Pandya [mailto:hitmaster2k@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 7:21 PM
> To: freebsd-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org; mikej@trigger.net
> Subject: Re: conf/32583: System becomes unusable after performing disk
> operations using /stand/sysinstall
> Importance: High
>
>
> Does this problem still occur with bug fixes from RELENG_4_4_0 or
> with the newer 4.5 version of FreeBSD?
>
> --
>  - Hiten Pandya
>  - <hiten@uk.FreeBSD.org>
>

Comment 7 jkh freebsd_committer

2002-05-13 20:59:55 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->closed

I cannot reproduce this and can only suspect from the symptoms that 
you must have hosed your boot volume.  I've certainly used sysinstall 
to partition/install _other_ disks without seeing anything like this happen.