ran df to check space and multiple /etc?

spooge · 11-21-2009, 02:16 PM

checking disk space i ran
df -h
and got the following result

Code:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root              73G  4.8G   64G   8% /
/dev/hdb2             1.9G   48M  1.8G   3% /etc
/dev/hdb2             1.9G   48M  1.8G   3% /etc
/dev/hdb2             1.9G   48M  1.8G   3% /etc
/dev/hdb2             1.9G   48M  1.8G   3% /etc
tmpfs                1007M     0 1007M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hdb1              37G  642M   35G   2% /home

i dont like what i see.

also it didn't show /var which is mounted @ hdb3

fstab

Quote:

/dev/hda2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hdb3 /var ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hdb1 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb2 /etc ext3 defaults 1 1
#/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,owner,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

any ideas why?

thanks

paulsm4 · 11-21-2009, 02:56 PM

Hi -

You didn't mention what distro or version you were running ... or whether you've recently tried to add or reconfigure any drives ...

... but it sounds like your /etc/fstab might be seriously messed up.

SUGGESTION:
1. Boot into single-user mode
2. Check your fstab for consistency
3. Run "fsck" on everything in sight (still in single-user mode, dismounting any/all disks manually as needed)

spooge · 11-21-2009, 03:05 PM

umm slackware.

well this is my brother's box.
he says he copied his etc dir from hda / over to a hdb2 and then added the mount point in fstab.
says he wanted it safe for next upgrade.

i'll do some fsckn on the disks
far as i can see, fstab looks fine.

markush · 11-21-2009, 03:12 PM

Hello together,

if /dev/hdb is a new device I'd suggest to make sure that all partitions are really formatted. If a device shows up in fstab properly but isn't mounted at startup anyway this could be a hint that the device isn't formatted.

Markus

wildwizard · 11-21-2009, 03:25 PM

I just tested out a theory and this is how 'df' works.

'df' reads '/etc/mtab' and gives a reading for each and every line contained in that file if a partition is listed multiple times then you will see multiple entries for that partition as you are currently seeing.

'/etc/mtab' is a dynamically created file created by mount when partitions are mounted and unmounted

Slackware's rc.S should reinitialize the file on every boot however if the problem persists between boots then you have a more serious problem.

spooge · 11-21-2009, 04:54 PM

well i figured this was creating a loop with an already existing /etc on hda1.
that fstab( /etc on hda1) had a mount point for /etc on hdb2.

i restarted with hdb disconnected, commented out the mount point to /etc on hdb2. then connected the hard drive and rebooted.

seems fine.

so what would be the correct way to have/move /etc on/to another drive?
or is this just a bad thing?

thanks

GazL · 11-21-2009, 05:10 PM

Having /etc in a separate fs is a really bad idea. You'll end up with all sorts of weird stuff going wrong. If you want to preserve it's contents then just back it up with a cp, tar, cpio or other utility of your choice.

It's also worth pointing out that many of the files in /etc will change between versions, so overwriting a new /etc with the contents of the last one will likely break stuff. By all means take a copy of some of your config files so that you can copy them back into place, but you can't do that for /etc as a whole.

gnashley · 11-22-2009, 02:54 AM

You can't have /etc on a separate partition unless you are using some sort of initrd that mounts it under / before running init.