Errors in /etc configuration may make system unbootable, even in recovery mode

[Curt Sampson]

(I'm reporting this against the kernel as per the instructions in the "finding the right package" help page, as it says I should do this if the bug makes the system unbootable even in recovery mode.)

Certain configuration errors will render the system unbootable, even in recovery mode, and even when giving "emergency" on the kernel command line, forcing you to boot from other media in order to try to resolve the problem. Further, these errors tend to be very hard to diagnose, since typically there are no error messages; the boot simply halts after an fsck of the root filesystem, though the machine can be cleanly shut down with Ctrl-Alt-Del.

(One way to debug a problem like this, if you've been using etckeeper since before the problem occurred, is to boot with external media, mount the root filesystem of the broken machine, and move around from commit to commit trying to find which one broke the system.)

Configuration errors that have put me in this state include syntax or other errors in /etc/network/interfaces and a line in /etc/fstab without "noauto" when the drive it was trying to mount was not connected.

This is on 10.04 server with the latest updates as of the date of this bug report.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Curt,

Please be sure to confirm this issue exists with the latest development release of Ubuntu. ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily/current/ . If the issue remains, please run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 623887

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

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[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu development release http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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[Curt Sampson (cjs-cynic)]

I've confirmed that the particular issues I experienced are fixed in 10.10. (I didn't bother to check interim versions, Jeremy, because you gave me no indication that any work had been done to fix this; it sounded as if you were just trying to make some work to blow me off.)