rescue(8)
NAME
rescue - rescue utilities in /rescue
DESCRIPTION
- The /rescue directory contains a collection of common utili
- ties intended
for use in recovering a badly damaged system. With the - transition to a
dynamically-linked root beginning with FreeBSD 5.2, there is - a real possibility that the standard tools in /bin and /sbin may be
- come non-functional due to a failed upgrade or a disk error. The tools
- in /rescue are
statically linked and should therefore be more resistant to - damage. However, being statically linked, the tools in /rescue are also
- less functional than the standard utilities. In particular, they do
- not have full
use of the locale, pam(3), and nsswitch libraries. - If your system fails to boot, and it shows a prompt similar
- to:
Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh:- the first thing to try running is the standard shell,
- /bin/sh. If that
fails, try running /rescue/sh, which is the rescue shell. - To repair the
system, the root partition must first be remounted read - write. This can
be done with the following mount(8) command:
/rescue/mount -uw /- The next step is to double-check the contents of /bin,
- /sbin, and
/usr/lib, possibly mounting a FreeBSD rescue or ``live file - system'' CDROM (e.g., disc2 of the officially released FreeBSD ISO im
- ages) and copying files from there. Once it is possible to successfully
- run /bin/sh,
/bin/ls, and other standard utilities, try rebooting back - into the standard system.
- The /rescue tools are compiled using crunchgen(1), which
- makes them considerably more compact than the standard utilities. To
- build a FreeBSD
system where space is critical, /rescue can be used as a re - placement for
the standard /bin and /sbin directories; simply change /bin - and /sbin to
be symbolic links pointing to /rescue. Since /rescue is - statically
linked, it should also be possible to dispense with much of - /usr/lib in
such an environment. - In contrast to its predecessor /stand, /rescue is updated
- during normal
FreeBSD source and binary upgrades.
FILES
/rescue Root of the rescue hierarchy.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
The rescue utilities first appeared in FreeBSD 5.2.
AUTHORS
- The rescue system was written by Tim Kientzle <kient
- zle@acm.org>. This
manual page was written by Simon L. Nielsen <simon@FreeB - SD.org>, based on
text by Tim Kientzle <kientzle@acm.org>.
BUGS
- Most of the rescue tools work even in a fairly crippled sys
- tem. The most
egregious exception is the rescue version of vi(1), which - currently
requires that /usr be mounted so that it can access the - termcap(5) files.
Hopefully, a failsafe termcap(3) entry will eventually be - added into the
ncurses(3) library, so that /rescue/vi can be used even in a - system where
/usr cannot immediately be mounted. In the meantime, the - rescue version
of the ed(1) editor can be used from /rescue/ed if you need - to edit
files, but cannot mount /usr. - BSD July 23, 2003