Failed to overwrite statefile "Read only file-system"
 

/ is mounted as Read-only.

I created a Symbolic link for ifstate from /etc/network/run to /var/run (/var/run is mounted as tmpfs) and I can write to and from the file perfectly fine, but when trying to start the network I get "Failed to overwrite statefile Read only file-system". I double checked permissions to see if that was the problem, but it does not appear to be.

Any advice?

May be directory itself "read-only" or you do not have permissions to write there?

I don't seem to be able to change the directory permissions. Either way the symbolic link should point it to /var/run which is writable.

Can certain user write to there?

The default user account created in Debian doesn't have any problem writing to it. Now it can't write in the directory /etc/networking/run but writing directly to the file /etc/networking/run/ifstate works fine.

I was getting this error on Ubuntu Hardy using Xen VM, found that I was missing /lib/init/mount-functions.sh so just transferred it from other VM.