A strange thing happened

[bsd007]

Hi,

By mistake I had booted OpenBSD without a mouse or keyboard connected.

When I powered on the PC it warned me that no keyboard is connected so I plugged in my keyboard but by the time I plugged in my keyboard OpenBSD had already started loading.


Next time I booted it just says "boot" then the boot process starts and returns to the "boot" again. This (loop) continued forever so I had to install Ubuntu.

Can someone please tell me what happened.

[jggimi]

I don't think the two issues are directly related. Failure to attach a keyboard wouldn't have anything to do with a later failure to load a kernel.

Unfortunately as you no longer have the damaged system, there is no way to determine the cause or to initiate a repair.

[bsd007]

Originally Posted by jggimi

I don't think the two issues are directly related. Failure to attach a keyboard wouldn't have anything to do with a later failure to load a kernel.

Unfortunately as you no longer have the damaged system, there is no way to determine the cause or to initiate a repair.

Do you think installing OpenBSD under virtualbox is a good idea ?

I ask coz there is no guest additions available for OpenBSD.

[PapaParrot]

Well, I ran OpenBsd for almost 2 years on a virtual box VM , before I decided to install it
on the HD , and had no issues. The guest additions is a non issue, when I needed to access
files on the host system I just used/use ssh, and scp or sftp to connect to the host.
Lately I am using QUEMO for my VM's it does not use any "guest additions", I don't think
they are really necessary.

Can someone please tell me what happened.

Not without any logs or anything, is there any other details you are not telling us, IE; did you shut the computer off before OpenBsd completely booted ?, or while it was running ?, it kind of sounds like something that could happen when the system is not properly shut down.
We get a lot of unexpected power failures here, and when that happens, sometimes I need to run 'fsck' when I boot, but it has never caused any thing that was not repairable.

For what it is worth, I do not think using Ubuntu as a host is a very good idea. If I had a problem with OpenBsd not booting any more, and could not find a solution I would try re-installing OpenBsd, or have used my backup to restore the system.
I have do not usually have any problem with OpenBsd detecting devices when connected , even after it was booted and running. However, I have a couple of portable USB drives that
it is better to have them connected before booting, in any event , if and when it does not
detect a device that gets connected while it is running, and I reboot, never have had the kind of failure you mention, and usually it detects the device when it boots.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Originally Posted by bsd007

Do you think installing OpenBSD under virtualbox is a good idea ?

I ask coz there is no guest additions available for OpenBSD.

Try KVM/QEMU instead, that should support an OpenBSD guest:

https://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Guest...Status#OpenBSD

Guide here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KVM

[jggimi]

An installation of an alternative OS indicates a clear dissatisfaction with - or distrust of - OpenBSD.

----

Regarding backups:

We backup in fear. Fear of finger-fumbles, mistakes, software problems, and hardware troubles.

But we restore in panic.

Unless we regularly test our backups with our restore procedures, we have no guarantee that we will be able to successfully restore our systems. Regular testing, if successful, reduces the stress of restoring when we actually need to do so.

[LeFrettchen]

Originally Posted by GarryR

Well, I ran OpenBsd for almost 2 years on a virtual box VM , before I decided to install it
on the HD , and had no issues.

Same for me, I used OpenBSD with VBox for 6 months, no issues, except PEBKAC.

Originally Posted by jggimi

An installation of an alternative OS indicates a clear dissatisfaction with - or distrust of - OpenBSD.

Well, in my case, it was clearly a distrust of me, myself and my PEBKAC

[bsd007]

I have reinstalled OpenBSD. No more worries. Thanks to all for your replies.

[PapaParrot]

Well, that's good,... Hopefully it does not occur again, but if in the future it does,
if it at least gets to the "boot> " part, you can , maybe boot as a single user (root),
if you can , there is a chance you can repair the system boot process so that it
will boot properly, also you can them access logs, to get info on what happened.
http://www.openbsdsupport.org/ed_and_fstab.html

A system where everything was working just fine, suddenly fails to boot ----snip---- You will need to operate in single user mode. You can get into that mode from the boot prompt:
boot> boot -s

Also you can use the same install device or CD to boot, and possibly repair the system, and not need to re-install.

I have a bootable usb device I made, with OpenBsd on it, this gives me a "live USB" device that I can use to work on the system if need be, never have needed to use it though.
There is some more details on making a "live" usb , or CD here:
http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=5234

[jggimi]

Originally Posted by GarryR

... Hopefully it does not occur again, but if in the future it does,
if it at least gets to the "boot> " part, you can , maybe boot as a single user (root)...

If I understood the initial problem, a bootable kernel was not available. This points to a functioning bootloader, but a damaged disklabel or damaged root partition.

This type of problem is possible through admin error -- I know, because I did it to myself only a week ago on this laptop I'm typing from. I'd used dd(1) as root, with a typo in the sd(4) device node name.

My "ooops" destroyed the disklabel and the root partition, though still had a functioning 2-stage bootloader. The second stage bootloader was still in its sectors, it had not been overwritten. But the system was un-bootable.

Did I panic? Of course. And I was angry at myself for my finger-fumble.

But I test my backup and recovery procedures.

I was able to restore the disklabel from backup, recreate the root partition from a recovery staging system, and restore /etc and /root from backup. End result? No data lost, just some time, and now ... some public embarrassment.

[PapaParrot]

I'd used dd(1) as root, with a typo in the sd(4) device node name.

Don't be to embarrassed, I have done the same, ...my guess is probably a lot of people
have,...

[scottro]

I think almost everyone has run a dd or rm -rf to the wrong place.