Re: broken /var
David E. Fox wrote: had a big problem this afternoon - had some serious issues with the reiserfs on /dev/hda1 (an oldish 1.6 gig maxtor), ended up not being able to fsck it to an orderly state. Had to redo the whole fs, (should have made a backup) and grab a /var from a ubuntu disk. Obviously, ubuntu is not debian, but their /var structure should be similar enough that I can fix the problems after the fact. I've also had some issues with reiserfs and have always sticked to ext3 ever since. I guess the advantages of reiserfs don't warrant experiments on important data. ext3 is rock solid on debian. YMMV. 2 major problems remain: using postfix, this has been working for years, ran postfix check to recreate the missing directories, and my machine (m206-157.dsl.tsoft.com) is getting the mail fine. I just can't *send* mail. Postfix tells me that there is an unknown transport for the mail I try to send, and holds it in the queue. The other issue - I no longer have a working repository for dpkg describing what files are installed. Is there a way to recreate it without a reinstall? I noticed that aptitude upgrade was fetching down a number of things, but as I don't know what it's upgrading *from* I don't know if I can trust it. Another thing - aptitude update was going very slowly and experiencing connection time outs periodically during the execution, so I don't think I can trust it. On the other hand, dpkg --get-selections gives me a number of things, but honestly I think those where what Ubuntu put there? Obviously, that is not what I want. I'm hoping to not have to reinstall this thing :). /var has all variable data of your system except configuration files. Ie. the data on /var depends on your system and cannot be just copied from ubuntu. For some help to get from here, see http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-package.en.html#s-recover-status and the part about recovering from lost /var further down that page. When I had a similar problem, I didn't feel comfortable to continue using the 'recovered' /var and finally reinstalled after taking snapshots of /etc and recovering the package selection data from /etc/ and /usr/share/doc. HTH, good luck, Johannes -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: broken /var
On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:54:01 +0200 Johannes Wiedersich [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've also had some issues with reiserfs and have always sticked to ext3 ever since. I guess the advantages of reiserfs don't warrant experiments on important data. ext3 is rock solid on debian. YMMV. Well, I had a dodgy disk too. I switched the formatting of it to ext2 for now (switching to ext3 now is trivial). I pulled out some of my remaining hair :), and managed to fix the postfix issue. after a couple of problems (ended up having to run postfix check a number of times, make sure all the perms were correct, and comment out a few lines in the postfix script relating to usr/lib/zoneinfo). /var has all variable data of your system except configuration files. Ie. the data on /var depends on your system and cannot be just copied from ubuntu. I figured as much. log files and such are trivial, they'll be written over. Postfix now seems to work OK. I now need to recover mysql (as I only use it for Amarok, it should be easy enough to rebuild that database), and get the dpkg fixed. For some help to get from here, see http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-package.en.html#s-recover-status and the part about recovering from lost /var further down that page. I took a look at that page, and the link for var.tar.gz seems to point to a link that doesn't contain that content. The two tar files on the site aren't what is expected. snapshots of /etc and recovering the package selection data from /etc/ and /usr/share/doc. What I'll probably end up having to do is to reinstall from latest etch. OTOH, how to recover the package selection data? I gather that (more or less) every file in /usr/share/doc translates somehow into a debian package, right? Johannes -- David E. Fox Thanks for letting me [EMAIL PROTECTED]change magnetic patterns [EMAIL PROTECTED] on your hard disk. --- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: broken /var/lib/dpkg/status
On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 05:04:43PM -0500, Aaron Stromas wrote: Greetings, apt-get complains: dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 18124 package `ksysguard': `Depends' field, reference to `xlibs': version contains ` ' Indeed, the status file at that line looks like this Replaces: kdebase ( 4:3.0.0), kdebase-doc ( 4:3.0.0), kpm ( 4:3.0.0) Depends: kdelibs4 (= 4:3.3.2-6.2), libart-2.0-2 (= 2.3.16), libc6 (= 2.3.2.ds1-21), libfam0c102, libgcc1 (= 1:3.4.1-3), libice6 | xlibs ( 4.1.0), libidn11 (= 0.5.13), libpng12-0 (= 1.2.8rel), libqt3c102-mt (= 3: 3.3.4), libsm6 | xlibs ( 4.1.0- version of `%.250s' to allow reinstallation of backup copy), libstdc++5 (= 1:3.3.4-1), libx11-6 | xlibs ( 4.1.0), libxext6 | xlibs ( 4.1.0), libxrender1, zlib1g (= 1:1.2.1), ksysguardd (= 4:3.3.2-1sarge1) Is there a graceful way to fix it? TIA, Edit the file and change it to libsm6 | xlibs ( 4.1.0) -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto pgp6e46rOXgOs.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: broken /var/lib/dpkg/status
On 11/8/05, Roberto C. Sanchez [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there a graceful way to fix it? TIA,Edit the file and change it to libsm6 | xlibs ( 4.1.0) just plain editor? no fancy tools? worked, though. thanks! -a
Re: Broken /var filesystem
Joey Hess wrote: David A. Cobb wrote: I found a huge problem with my /var filesystem. Or, at least, fsck was going to take all day and more fixing 11 inode block numbers each pass. It's supposed to be possible to clean /var, or at least FHS suggests so. Not really, it only says you can delete data from /var/cache. So, I re-initialized /var. Welcome to a nearly endless world of pain. Where are your backups, BTW? Ah, yes. Backups. Waiting 'til I can afford a RW+DVD or some other suitably high-capacity device to make them onto. :-! Can anyone identify what directories and files dpkg requires to exist? /var/lib/dpkg/status (empty) If that doesn't work, I figure by tonight I will go back to my Woody-CD's and build up again from there. -- David A. Cobb, Software Engineer, Public Access Advocate By God's Grace, I am a Christian man; by my actions a great sinner. -- The Way of a Pilgrim: R.French, Tr. Free at last! Free at last! Using Linux, I'm FREE at last! Life is too short to tolerate crappy software! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Broken /var filesystem
Joey Hess wrote: David A. Cobb wrote: I found a huge problem with my /var filesystem. Or, at least, fsck was going to take all day and more fixing 11 inode block numbers each pass. It's supposed to be possible to clean /var, or at least FHS suggests so. Not really, it only says you can delete data from /var/cache. So, I re-initialized /var. Welcome to a nearly endless world of pain. Where are your backups, BTW? Can anyone identify what directories and files dpkg requires to exist? /var/lib/dpkg/status (empty) Didn't seem to help. Scr** it! Back to the CD's -- David A. Cobb, Software Engineer, Public Access Advocate By God's Grace, I am a Christian man; by my actions a great sinner. -- The Way of a Pilgrim: R.French, Tr. Free at last! Free at last! Using Linux, I'm FREE at last! Life is too short to tolerate crappy software! -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Broken /var filesystem
David A. Cobb wrote: I found a huge problem with my /var filesystem. Or, at least, fsck was going to take all day and more fixing 11 inode block numbers each pass. It's supposed to be possible to clean /var, or at least FHS suggests so. Not really, it only says you can delete data from /var/cache. So, I re-initialized /var. Welcome to a nearly endless world of pain. Where are your backups, BTW? Can anyone identify what directories and files dpkg requires to exist? /var/lib/dpkg/status (empty) -- see shy jo signature.asc Description: Digital signature
