# Read-only filesystem?

## Aciel

I've been getting some very strange problems.

Every other time I try to emerge something (so far, xorg-x11 and mozilla-firefox), it gets part way through the merge and then starts complaining that my filesystem is read-only.

I've got it downloading package files in part of my home directory, because I'm low on space in root. Well, when I tried to merge x11, my home directory went read-only all of the sudden. Confirmed: I couldn't 'touch' anything, just view files.

I booted up, unmounted home, and fsck'd it. LOTS and LOTS of errors. It took like two tries to fix them all.

Then when I was installing firefox just now, it got all the way to the end and complained that my root filesystem was readonly. Couldn't use any of my commands, just had to save everything (home working this time) and reboot.

I booted to a liveCD, fsck'd root. About 20 errors, then it reported clean. So I rebooted.

It's working for the moment, but is my hard drive failing or is there something else wrong?

Also, anyone know of a place I can rent some space online for a month or so while I get this sorted out? I really would prefer not to burn anything to CD, but I'd like to make sure I don't lose all of my email, message logs, et cetera.

Thanks, guys and gals.

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## elvisthedj

is the disk full?

re: space online,  gmail gives you a gig.. 10 meg attachment limit.  I think I've even seen an app to make gmail appear to be an ftp account (maybe part of lib gmail).  Of course, there are always the free web communities.

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## Aciel

Disk is definitely not full.

Dammit, this is a Sony VAIO laptop, and I got it just over a year ago. That probably means my warranty just expired. Bloody hell.

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## elvisthedj

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> because I'm low on space in root
> 
> 

 

The two packages you mentioned that are failing are rather large.  If you don't have the space on your root partition to handle the packages, it seems to me you might not have enough space on your root partition to actually complile the packages (assuming /var is mounted on the same partition since that is where the work directory for the compilation is).

How much space do you have on your root and is /var on the same partition?

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Dammit, this is a Sony VAIO laptop
> 
> 

 

I'll give ya 20 bucks for it.. you got Paypal?  :Very Happy: 

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## Aciel

On root I've got around 580M free. In home I've got 48G free.

I'd have thought it was just a problem with package size except that the first time portage tried to extract xorg (or, at least, I think that's what it was doing), my home decided to go read-only too. But, now it's root doing it as much as home.

Usually when I boot up again there's some sort of damage to the filesystems. The first time it was to home, the second time to root, but this most recent time--even though it was root that went read-only--the damage was in home again.

I'm very confused.

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## drwook

I hate to say it, but it's not sounding great for the disk to my ears...

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## TranceTip

Even if the disks are full, tools shouldn't report that the drives are read-only.

It seems like your disks are dying or that the drivers have detected some

other hardware problem (check console or /var/log/messages).

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## Aciel

That messages log doesn't appear to exist. Didn't see anything suspicious when I skimmed the kernel log and dmesg, either.

Unfortunately, I can't check the logs when it's happening because suddenly the CAT command stops working. Argh.

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## elvisthedj

You could play around with hdparm.. for instance, see if it actually reports the drive as read only (when the problem is occuring).. Maybe do some cache timing tests to see if the drive acts wierd or totally dies (If the drive is on its way out, not much use spending a lot of time with it).

There are other features you can play with in hdparm, but if you've never used it, I'd read the man page pretty thouroughly as you can cause some damage with it if you're not careful.

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## Aciel

How can I use hdparm if the partition it's on is fscking up? Pun intended.

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## elvisthedj

Do you have the livecd??  To be honest, I don't know if it's included or not.  I think you might want to go with that whole "backup" plan though  :Smile:   If this was my drive, it would already be wiped by now... and if a fresh install (including trashing/recreating the partition table) did the same thing, i'd have to break out the credit card and screwdriver... or sell my laptop to some dude on the forums for 25 bucks.

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## Aciel

Unfortunately I'm a CS major and it's hell week. Umm. Thanks for the help, I'll try the fresh install, soon as I rescue the files.

Thank god for backup desktops.

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## PChaos

Another interesting thread to this thing is https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2360692.html#2360692

And I don´t think it is something really serious with the disk itself.

I can say this, as same problem ocurs on my notebook.

Sadly I recognized different people have this Problem, and to make confusion complete, all occured within the last days.

My assumption is, something within portage or some updated ebuilds is running wild....

Edit: checked again, all I found about exactly this errors seemed to start in wednesday, 27th.

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## PChaos

HEURECA

At least it seems to work again for me.

edit: this one may be obsolete, skip it and read next one.

After booting from a live CD and fsck-ing the partitions having the readonly problem, it work after booting at least for a while. After a while, indeed a rather short one, readonly again, this time / and /var for me.

After that i did a boot from CD again, did a fsck and made some changes to the /etc/fstab .

I was using ext3 filesystem until this morning, and a friend of mine mentioned this occurance causing so much work for fsck could be a fault in journald. So I changed mounts from ext3 to ext2, good luck extfs is able to switch as you like in this case, did a reboot and had no problems up to this minute. running emerge -u world for about 2 hours and completing some minor emerges in the meantime. No more readonly problem here.

If further problems occur, I will tell you in this place.

PS: Bad luck for users with reiserfs so far, I have no idea if it is possible to deactivate journaling here. Maybe someone could post if she or he knows if and how this is possible.

Have a nice weekend every1

PChaosLast edited by PChaos on Sun May 01, 2005 11:44 am; edited 1 time in total

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## PChaos

Oops, that was to fast...

After it worked for a while, including emerging some things, the problem occured again.

But this time I immediately found the cause of the trouble.

Due to some missleaded modules-update my /etc/make.conf was messed up.

I restored it obeying some hints from docs, how-tos and forum posts concerning the content of a good make.conf

I also added FEATURES="sandbox", what by the way I remember now was also added short before troubles started the first time. Only thing i don´t remember is, if i added it manually or if it was added by etc-update.

Anyway, with sandbox active, troubles started again. But this time i got not only an error because of a readonly filesystem, but also a hint concerning some /tmp/sandbox which was either readonly or did not exist.

Next idea: reboot, fsck, disable FEATURES="sandbox"

Success? Well, as far as i know, yes. I am completing my emerge -u world since 6 hours and no further errors occured.

Next step: remounting everything with journaling enabled.

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## rolfst

Hi there don't count on the disabled sandbox feature. 

I hadn't it enabled at all and have the same problem only now my superblock on the disk has been corrupted and strangely enough my windows system that makes use of the same drive, only another partition has no problem what so ever.

so I think that I'll be needing a new disk  :Crying or Very sad: 

because I cannot fix the drive any more

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