Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 139656
initscripts-7.96-1, /dev/pts already mounted or busy
Last modified: 2014-03-16 22:50:28 EDT
initscripts-7.96-1 says /dev/pts is already mounted or busy at boot. nevertheless /dev/pts devices are present after boot. the same was with /sys, but commenting it out in /etc/fstab resolved this error and /sys is still mounted for me. this version greatly improved startup time, good work!! thanks! lars ps. a second thing was that i had to move the wep encryption key string from keys-ethX file to ifcfg-ethX, to get my wireless card connect to the router again. maybe i will bugzilla this as a seperate entry.
I also get the "already mounted or busy" comment for FAT32 and NTFS drives that I mount through fstab entries, but they also are mounting correctly and working fine despite the error message during bootup.
Count me in as well: I came up with a workaround and a potential reason. I'll attach the patch so someone that understands the things done between where I moved the mount -a * * * statements from in the old version *to* in the new version can comment on it. The other two symptoms following 'busy pts' for me were that although my 2nd disk (/d2 mount point) was mounted rw and could be accessed, it was not in the /etc/mtab table and was failing on the mount -a statement. The last problem I noticed was that my swapfile was not mounted correctly. All of this was 'cured' by moving the "mount -a nonfs,* * * *" statement & swapon statement down below the mount -n statements that only put entries into mtab. It also looks as if the mtab needs to be cleared before the mount -a. I'm not sure I can attach & comment (or walk and chew gum) at once, so I'll attach the workaround I came up after this comment.
Created attachment 106904 [details] Workaround for 'pts busy' and other problems described in my comment above. Ok, I see now I could have combined this entire mess into one, but since I didn't know, the information regarding this workaround is in my previous comment.
OK, this is just because all the mounting is done before the root FS is read-write, so /etc/mtab is all wrong.
I'd come up with that by putting a $cp /etc/mtab /etc/mtab.sav, along with an $echo $state right after this: ---- cut from rc.sysinit --- # Remount the root filesystem read-write. update_boot_stage RCmountfs state=`LC_ALL=C awk '/ \/ / && ($3 !~ /rootfs/) { print $4 }' /proc/mounts` [ "$state" != "rw" -a "$READONLY" != "yes" ] && \ action $"Remounting root filesystem in read-write mode: " mount -n -o remount, rw / --------------- The $echo $state showed 'ro' during boot and the content of /etc/mtab.sav was : /dev/hda6 / ext3 rw 0 0 none /proc proc rw 0 0 But, doesn't this still mean that the $mount -a *** has to be done after the series of $mount -f's that setup the now writeable /etc/mtab?
Fixed in 7.99-1.
In 7.99-1, the previous problems are gone and in their place, "/" (or root) doesn't show up in output of 'mount' or "df -v". I'm off for holiday in a few hours, but this bug isn't fixed, only changed. When dismounting, umount/umount2 can't dismount / since they think its not mounted. It still seems like a new variant on mtab being in an incorrect state. That old patch ^^ up there where I moved the mount -a past the cleared mtab in the prior version still works fine (the technique, not that specific patch anymore).
And for me, 7.99-1 eliminates the message, but it doesn't mount the 3 ntfs/vfat partitions listed in my fstab anymore, which were the subject of the messages. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater?!? ;) I went back to 7.98-1 for now.
While previous variants of initscripts had annoying quirks the 7.99-1 release is thoroughly broken to the point of making machines unusuable and X instantly locking up (because it is unable to find any fonts). The problem is that _none_ of disk based file systems but / ends up mounted and what is written to /etc/mtab has a very tenous relationship with reality totally confusing programs like 'mount' or 'df'. If you dumped everything in / then you may not notice the problem; otherwise sizeable portions of a system will not work. A way to recover on a machine stricken by initscripts-7.99-1 is to boot to level 1, remount / read-write, do something like 'umount -a -t ext3' (it will likely protest that most of what you are trying to unmount is not mounted) followed by 'mount -a' and check if the mess was more or less recovered. If no then you have to do further cleanup. If yes then you can do 'telinit 5' and then it should boot. It looks that what I described in comments to bug #139642 as a rough way to recover to some more-or-less usable state is not good enough for 7.99-1.
Ok, here is the disaster area. In /etc/rc.sysinit there are these lines # Enter mounted filesystems into /etc/mtab mount -a -f Before these lines and before clearing it /etc/mtab actually looks quite sane. After these lines we get in /etc/mtab all kinds of file systems which actually are not there. In my case 'df' in that moment shows: Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda10 966M 589M 329M 65% /boot none 249M 152K 249M 1% /dev/shm /dev/sda14 966M 589M 329M 65% /home /dev/sda13 966M 589M 329M 65% /opt /dev/sda12 966M 589M 329M 65% /usr /usr/tmp.real 966M 589M 329M 65% /var/tmp which means that "all" file systems on disk are actually the same as / which, for a change, is missing. From that moment on we are in trouble because any executables from /usr/{bin,sbin} used in further stages of startup are not available and 'mount -a' will not mount anything. OTOH if you will try 'umount /usr' then you will get "umount: /dev/sda12: not mounted" Addition of 'mount -a' before 'mount -a -f' solves an immediate problem of making the system bootable and somewhat fit for use. There is still missing / in /etc/mtab so it does not show up in 'df' output. I do not see an obvious way of adding that without parsing /etc/fstab to construct proper arguments for 'mount -f ...'. Other ideas? Another one which is missing is /dev but this does not seem to be overly important if not exactly right. OTOH, to make up for the ebove, in /proc/mounts we end with double lines 'none /dev tmpfs rw 0 0' and '/proc /proc proc rw,nodiratime 0 0' and there are some "already mounted" complaints in a startup; likely from 'mount -a'.
When I wrote yesterday about parsing /etc/fstab I had in mind a code in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit like that: ..... # Remove stale backups rm -f /etc/mtab~ /etc/mtab~~ # enter / into mtab add_to_mtab () { local opts case "$1" in '#'*) return 1 ;; esac # only / gets "special treatment" [ "$2" != '/' ] && return 1 opts="$1" case "$opts" in LABEL*) opts="-L ${opts#*=}" ;; UUID*) opts="-U ${opts#*=}" ;; *) ;; esac mount -f -t $3 $opts $2 } if [ -r /etc/fstab ] ; then while read line ; do add_to_mtab $line && break done < /etc/fstab fi # mount what can mount mount -a >/dev/null 2>&1 # Enter mounted filesystems into /etc/mtab mount -a -f ..... With those changes my system at least boots, starts X, and /etc/mtab and an outptut of df look approximately sane.
Created attachment 107515 [details] a patch to get correct mounts in startup Looking closer at rc.sysinit I see that I should be somewhat more careful what I am mounting and where. My current change to rc.sysinit is attached. With this I am booting correctly and without excessive wailing during a startup and a shutdown. I am not entering now /dev into /etc/mtab as this is causing "busy" complaints on a shutdown. Of course the other way around would be to delete '/dev' entry from /etc/mtab in /etc/rc.d/init.d/halt before trying unmounts.
Created attachment 107569 [details] much simpler changes OK, so, the change in 7.99-1 is just complete crack. This should work much better.
Hm, I thought that I tried 'mount -f /'. Obviously not as it does the right thing. Maybe it was 'mount -f / /'? Close but not quite. In such case I have another propositon for changes which does not require an explicit knowledge what was already mounted. Directly after 'mount -f /' do action $"Mounting local filesystems: " .... but with "no list" expanded by 'sysfs,devpts'. This followed by 'mount -a -f' like in a patch from comment #13. AFAICS this works as desired both when starting and shutting down. I have, for example, a machine with USB so broken that either it or X can be used; otherwise an instant lockup. This means that things like /proc/bus/usb are by no means guaranteed. :-)
The patch in comment 14 applied to 7.99-1 works for me.
Created attachment 107692 [details] changes simpler but not too simple With initscripts-8.00-1 I immediately got on my test system (USB not active): Remounting root filesystem in read-write mode: [ OK ] mount: can't find /proc/bus/usb in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab Mounting local filesystems: and three times "/usr: file system busy", or something to that effect, when shutting down. I am not sure why the later. With an attached patch on the top of initscripts-8.00-1 everything works correctly regardless if USB happens to be active or not.
The mount -f calls should just be redirected (as they were before.) The /usr thing is probably something different.
*** Bug 141749 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
With the current test kernels ("rawhide" but somebody else wrote that he is seeing the same for recent FC3 test kernels from Dave) I am seeing mount: can't find /proc/bus/usb in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab does not matter if there is 'nousb' in boot parameters or not. 'mount -a -f' is not causing such messages but /proc/bus/usb is not showing up in /etc/mtab either even if it is listed in /proc/mounts.
The error message is from the mount -f call.
/dev/null redirection added in 8.01-1.
*** Bug 139642 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***