Subject: how to boot single-user mode?

From: Ken Gaugler <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 07:44:51 -0700

Last night I tried and tried to get my system to come up in
single user mode (so I could do some major filesystem changes).
I couldn't get it to come up single-user.  I tried booting from
the original install boot floppy, and to my surprise it booted
up my kernel on the hard disk?!?!?!

I couldn't find the solution in the docs anywhere.  Can anyone tell
me what I should be doing?

For background, I need to change the size of some partitions, so
I need to copy whole partitions to a temporary location while I
re-do the partition table on the target disk.  I hope to avoid
having to re-install from tape or from scratch this way.

Thanks!

---

From: Shaya Potter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 16:42:43 -0400 (EDT)

I'm assuming you use lilo.  when you boot up and get the lilo prompt, 
type: linux single 
      ^(or whatever you call your linux partition)
if you don't use lilo, you have to have a way to pass the message single 
to init, so read the help files for whatever loader you use.

Hope this helps

Shaya
--
Shaya Potter
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 16:41:29 -0400 (EDT)

>single user mode (so I could do some major filesystem changes).

Ken, I'm not certain, but you can get to it by issuing the command
'telinit 1' while logged in as root.  Thats one way.

>having to re-install from tape or from scratch this way.

Perhaps a suggestion for you to consider to accomplish this is
using cpio.  For example, the command 'find . -depth | cpio -pdmv
/target_dir' will make an exact copy of a filesystem, preserving links
and file access times, etc.  If you execute the above from the top dir
of a filesystem, it will make a duplicate at the 'target_dir'.  I have used
cpio like this to copy the entire root and/or /usr partitions to new
locations with no problems whatsoever.

Paul

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From: "Christopher R. Hertel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 15:56:50 -0500

On Aug 13,  7:44am, Ken Gaugler wrote:
> Subject: how to boot single-user mode?
: Last night I tried and tried to get my system to come up in
: single user mode (so I could do some major filesystem changes).
: I couldn't get it to come up single-user.  I tried booting from
: the original install boot floppy, and to my surprise it booted
: up my kernel on the hard disk?!?!?!
>-- End of excerpt from Ken Gaugler

Just a quick check you can do:  Go into your BIOS setup and see if the
system is set to boot from C: then A:, or to ignore the floppy on boot.
 If so, then you need to make sure that the boot search order is A:,
C:.

This doesn't fix your other issue (not being able to run single-user),
but it's worth checking.

Chris -)-----

-- 
Christopher R. Hertel -)-----                   University of Minnesota
[email-masked]              Networking and Telecommunications Services

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From: Craig Sanders <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 09:28:59 +1000 (EST)

On Tue, 13 Aug 1996, Ken Gaugler wrote:

> Last night I tried and tried to get my system to come up in single
> user mode (so I could do some major filesystem changes). I couldn't
> get it to come up single-user. I tried booting from the original
> install boot floppy, and to my surprise it booted up my kernel on the
> hard disk?!?!?!

    linux -b
or
    linux emergency

from the LILO command prompt (assuming that the kernel image you want to
load is called "linux", that is...which is the case on most systems).

Craig

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From: [email-masked] (Bernd Eckenfels)
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1996 02:50:41 +0200 (MET DST)

Hi,

> I'm assuming you use lilo.  when you boot up and get the lilo prompt, 
If you dont get the lilo prompt you need to hold down the shift-key before
the kernel is loading. This will be a user option in liloconfig.

BTW: instead of 'single' you can also use 'emergency' which will even skip
the sysinit script (in case you have a REAL problem that you systemget stuck
before it is able to enter single user mode).

Greetings
Bernd