[aclug-L] Re: File too short

[Jeff Vian <jvian10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

bbales wrote:

>I scp'd some files to my wife's machine and one of them was a link to another 
>file, which was not on the target machine.  Linux locked up and won't boot.  
>I get a kernel panic:  
>init: error loading shared libraries:  libc.6.so:   file too short
>init: kernel panic:  attempting to kill init
>
>The boot disk I made won't get it going.  
>
>knoppix can't get to it.
>  
>
Why can't knoppix get to it?  What error messages do you see with 
Knoppix?  On my system, booting into knoppix leaves me as the knoppix 
user and I then 'su -' to become root.
You likely have to be root to do the fix needed.

I suggest booting from the knoppix CD,  become root, run fsck on the 
hdisk, then try mounting it and see if you can access the critical 
stuff.  While as user root fix the problem with the "short file" by 
deleting the improper file and creating a link to the proper file.

If the partition is full it may cause that kind of problem, particularly 
if it fills up just when trying to copy a critical file.

>Tried rescue mode - chroot sys/image.  Can't remove or ls or do any command - 
>always get error loading libraries: libc.6.so: file too short
>
>Found quite a few questions on google with file-too-short, but no appropriate 
>answers.
>
>Everything but swap is on one partition and I'd sure like to save her /home 
>directory.
>  
>
This is a good reason to have users stuff in its own partition. :-) 
 Also a very good reason for having several partitions on your 
installation.  A single bad filesystem does not prevent recovery because 
it means only part of the total install can be damaged by anything short 
of a total mechanical failure of the drive.

>Any ideas how to remove the offending piece of a file?
>bruce
>
What file was the link?  Was it the libc.6.so file you listed above?  On 
my system (RH9.0) I see
/lib/libc.so.6 -> /lib/libc-2.3.2.so
If this is what you mean, and you did not use the proper options, scp 
likely created an actual file instead of the soft link.

Testing here gives me an actual file in place of each soft link I try it 
on, and the options passed to cp that allow copying a link and keeping 
it as a link do not work for scp to maintain the link as such.  Copying 
a broken soft link leaves an empty file on the destination.

To fix simply remove the improper (actual but empty) libc.so.6 file and 
create a new link to the proper file as it was on the system you copied 
from.


To avoid this kind of problem, I use mondoarchive to do a periodic 
backup of the data on my drives.  A monthly full backup and weekly 
differential backups.  then if something *bad* happens I will never lose 
more than a week of new stuff.   Run mondo from a cron entry so I don't 
forget to do it.


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