# reboot not working with root

## pentium10

can be related to a Read-only filesystem that with root access

even if I type

1. reboot

2. /sbin/shutdown -r now

doesn't work?

the system has read only file system issues read this thread

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-645770-start-0-postdays-0-postorder-asc-highlight-.html

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## eccerr0r

it's possible a RO filesystem could cause these symptoms but most likely something corrupted run state.

You could try reboot -f (or reboot -n -f) to force an emergency reboot as your machine has already gone down due to mounting the disk read only.

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## schachti

If all other attempts fail, you can use the magic sysrq key (if it is compiled into the kernel). If you have physical access to the machine press

ALT and SysRq and u (at the same time) to remount all partitions read-only

ALT and SysRq and b (at the same time) to reboot the computer

If you do not have physical access to the machine, you can do

```

echo u > /proc/sysrq-trigger

echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger

```

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## pentium10

I want to remount read-write not read-only.

Can I run an fsck before reboot?

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## schachti

 *pentium10 wrote:*   

> I want to remount read-write not read-only.

 

You tried to reboot, and what I wrote there is how to reboot if other attempts fail. It in generell is a good idea to umount (or at least re-mount read-only) all mounted file systems before rebooting. If you reboot the machine via the magic sysrq key, it won't do that, so you manually have to take care of it to prevent data loss on partitions that are mounted rw. That is why I added how to remount all partitions read-only.

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## pentium10

I think it's already mounted read-only because I cannot alter the files.

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## eccerr0r

if you do run fsck on the disk you _must_ reboot the machine immediately after fscking so you'll still need to find a way to reboot the machine.

Either way you should not remount the disk r/w until you know that memory cache/buffers match what's on the disk (which is not due to failure).

Do you have serial console access to the machine?

Sometimes x86 machines are annoying due to this... hmm.

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## pentium10

For now I can only SSH with Putty, or call the company to reset the PC.

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## schachti

Do you have write access to /boot? Then you could set up a little rescue system there, reboot into the rescue system, do the fsck on the / partition and then reboot again.

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## pentium10

I can write to /boot

but I don't know what commands or files to put there, I don't have any knowledge of this. I know a few things but those are limited to the following commands (cd,mc,vi,cp,tar,mysql,chmod ) small things.

Can you help me what shall I put there?

the /var is mounted, and that is read-only

```

europa_e_serv boot # df

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on

/dev/md/2             48070408  37995404   7633132  84% /

udev                    777096       204    776892   1% /dev

/dev/md/1             68017608  41951260  22611176  65% /var

shm                     777096         0    777096   0% /dev/shm

```

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## schachti

What might be helpfull: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=265905. That is a thread about how to boot a LiveCD image from a vfat partition using grub. I think you've already installed grub, and instead of a vfat partition, you can put the LiveCD image to your /boot partition where you still have write access. It won't be easy, especially if you are not familiar with linux, but if you do not have physical access to the machine, you do not have many alternatives.

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