Being `well and truly up the creek'

Larry McVoy larry at geowhiz.UUCP
Thu Nov 14 05:35:57 AEST 1985


In article <2200 at umcp-cs.UUCP> chris at umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>One of the most, er, `interesting' things that can happen to a root
>file system is to lose /dev (have it turn into an ordinary file or
>soemthing).  If you have lost /dev, *and nothing else*, it would
>seem perfectly reasonable that /etc/init could come up single user
>by creating a new console device.  Of course, it will not, and one
>is forced to recover with standalone programs or a 4.2-style minifs.

Er, ahum, I, well, I did this a while ago via an otherwise useful utility
called nu (it ended up doing a rm -rf on /, I eventually figured out that
something was wrong when "No rmdir" was repeatedly shouted at me).  I was
out /dev & /bin, but still had /etc and /usr.  Using /etc/mknod, I was 
able to put back a /dev/rmt0 back and do a dump before doing the standalone
restor.  Very useful as I had done a fair bit of work that day....  
-- 
Larry McVoy						+----------------+
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Arpa:	mcvoy at rsch.wisc.edu				|   keep right	 |
Uucp:	{seismo, ihnp4}!uwvax!geowhiz!geophiz!larry	+----------------+



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