Bug#802025: /etc/mtab is not a symlink or not pointing to /proc/self/mounts

[Ilya Sukhanov]

Package: systemd
Version: 227-2
Severity: grave

System freezes at boot with "/etc/mtab is not a symlink or not pointing
to /proc/self/mounts..."

To reproduce install debian from stretch_di_alpha3 amd64 image (used
unofficial firmware variety [1] but suspect this does not matter). Quite
vanilla installation with no extra software selected but did customize
disk image layout. Its possible that this is really an installer bug,
but its manifested through systemd package.

Downgrading to libsystemd0 and systemd packages to 226-4 resolves the
issue and makes machine bootable. An inelegant but effective workaround.

There is a parallel discussion of this issue on the systemd github
project [2]. Although there is a mistake; 215-17+deb8u2 is actually
227-2.

Marking as grave as issue renders debian installation unusable.

--IAS

[1]
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/stretch_di_alpha3/amd64/iso-cd/
[2]
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/1495#issuecomment-148744470