[WBEL-users] missing files in /boot

[Luke Scharf]

On Tue, 2004-12-28 at 10:39, Richard Swift wrote:
> No, the machine is not booted... I'll try this asap.  Thanks again for 
> your help!

Best of luck.

Also, after the "rpm -qa | grep" step, be sure to examine "list.txt" and
remove any obvious errors.  Here are some other RPM tricks that will
help:
     1. "rpm -qa" will list all of the packages installed on the
        system.  "yum list" will do the same thing, and will also
        describe the packages that yum can download for you.  "yum
        search" will search for keywords in a package description.
     2. "rpm -qi packagename" will get a description of a package that
        is already installed on the system.  "yum info packagename" is
        similar.
     3. "rpm -ql packagename" will list the files that are supposed to
        be in any particular package.
     4. "rpm -qf /some/file/name" will tell you which package owns a
        particular file.
These tools are a good way to sanity check what you're doing between
each of the steps that I mentioned

Also, the second method that I describe seems like a lot like the
tablecloth trick where you pull the tablecloth out from under the
dishes.  It is.  But, since you're already booting from the
rescue/install CD, you're already dealing with annoying scenario.  Doing
that same trick on a system that will still boot sometimes is a bit more
of a nailbiter.  :-)

I didn't mention this since it doesn't sound like you're working on a
production system, but if the RH install CD has ssh on it (I'm not sure
if it does) or if you have a Knoppix/Helix/Gnoppix CD laying around, you
can copy your important files from the "dead" system by booting up the
system from a CD, mounting the volumes (/mnt/sysiamge on RH rescue,
/mnt/hd* or /mnt/sd* on Knoppix), and using a command like the
following:
# (cd /my/valuable/files ; tar -cf - . ) | ssh myself@bighome.host.edu 'cat > drainbamaged_2004-12-27.tar'
I'm not sure how much shell scripting you've done, but I've spent as
much as an hour describing how the above command works to people who
already use Unix.  Anyone who is comfortable with a command like (and
the variations of it) that has truly made the Unix command-line their
b*tch.  :-)

If you can't tell, I dig this stuff!

I hope this helps,
-Luke


-- 
Luke Scharf, Systems Administrator
Virginia Tech Aerospace and Ocean Engineering