fstab got corrupted

sameeksha khandelwal · 07-31-2017, 02:08 AM

hi,

i made changes to fstab file by changing 0 0 to 1 1 that corresponds to backup and fsck dumps.
after rebooting server, it showed that file system mounting failed and i was dropped at root password prompt to repair the file system.
but when I corrected the values, it showed that file is not writable.
Even I am not able to go in single user mode as the system is unable to find the root directory, kindly help on this .

HMW · 07-31-2017, 03:06 AM

Something similar happened to me just recently.

Whilst in the recovery prompt, in order to make changes to fstab, you need to remount the file system to make it writeable:

Code:

mount -o remount,rw /

After that, you can make changes to fstab (probably best to comment out the faulty line) with your editor of choice (Vi, nano) and reboot.

sameeksha khandelwal · 07-31-2017, 05:15 AM

Thanks a bunch HMW, will run this command and get back soon.

onebuck · 08-02-2017, 09:46 AM

Hi,

I suggest that whenever you are going to change a configuration file is that you should make a backup copy first. For '/etc/fstab' then 'cp /etc/fstab /etc/masterconfiguration/fstab_bak'. I keep a '/etc/masterconfiguration' directory to keep my original and backup configuration files within in case of emergency.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!