[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#425199: Mounting local filesystems... Failed!

[Mike Hommey]

severity 425199 important
thanks

On Sat, May 19, 2007 at 07:31:17PM -0700, David Lawyer wrote:
> Package: initscripts
> Version: 1.13.25
> 
> I get this message when I boot.  It comes from
> /etc/init.d/mountall.sh. when it tries to mount per /etc/fstab.  By
> commenting out lines in /etc/fstab I found that it's the line which
> mounts the proc filesystem on /proc that is causing the problem.
> 
> In ubantu I found that the mountall script had: mount ... -t noproc ..
> In other words, it doesn't try to mount proc and thus no error message.
> When I add noproc to Debian's mountall.sh (after -t of course), the
> "Failed!" message disappears.
> 
> I checked on the internet and found old instructions (not labelled
> "old") that fstab should have a line to mount proc.  I'm using a
> Debian from several years ago but upgrade it about once a year using
> apt-get.  So it should be current.  But upgrading doesn't seem to modify
> fstab (assuming that it shouldn't have a line to mount proc).
> 
> So a fix is needed: either use noproc or have upgrades modify
> /etc/fstab.

I confirm the bug and the possible fixes. Obviously, adding noproc is
the solution, here.

Note that you can still have /proc entry from an old install of Debian,
which *did* put it there at the times it was required.

Nowadays, /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh takes care of mounting /proc, /sys,
and other kernel filesystems, so having an entry for /proc in
/etc/fstab has become useless.

I'd also say this is a pretty important bug, because it can hide real
problems by systematically giving out an error when there is none.

I'd go as far as saying this should go to stable-proposed-updates.

Mike