No boot after hard reset unless "rm /etc/mtab~"

[downer]

Got a kernel lockup message again at shutdown, but then I couldn't boot without "rm /etc/mtab~" (note the trailing ~). I've had kernel lockup messages before and had to hard reset, but never this bad before. Any ideas how to prevent?

[jvillain]

The ~ is usually a sign that an editor has made a back up copy on save. Nano will do that for example.
But mtab isn't even a file any more and it isn't any thing you would have ever edited any ways. They now want /etc/mtab to be a symlink to /proc/self/mounts are you set up that way? Does that file keep comming back?

[downer]

I got a warning about a stale mtab when booting, and trying to mount a usb drive gave me a warning similar to "mount: can't open /etc/mtab for writing: stale NFS file handle".

I don't have mtab setup as a symbolic link, but this Rawhide system was upgraded from 13 and 14 so there might be something left over. I made sure everything was Rawhide with "yum --releasever=rawhide distro-sync" after upgrading.

My /proc/self/mounts is empty, but /etc/mtab contains data. I don't know if my system is ready to make the change yet. This is actually my daily system, so I'm hesitant to fry it!

[karo1170]

I got a warning about a stale mtab when booting, and trying to mount a usb drive gave me a warning similar to "mount: can't open /etc/mtab for writing: stale NFS file handle".

I don't have mtab setup as a symbolic link, but this Rawhide system was upgraded from 13 and 14 so there might be something left over. I made sure everything was Rawhide with "yum --releasever=rawhide distro-sync" after upgrading.

My /proc/self/mounts is empty, but /etc/mtab contains data. I don't know if my system is ready to make the change yet. This is actually my daily system, so I'm hesitant to fry it!

I manually changed /etc/mtab to a symlink /proc/self/mounts, this was not done automatically.
Saving /etc/mtab and then creating the symlink, should not cause too much trouble.

Regards
karo

FYI: cat /proc/self/mounts should show you a list of devices.

[downer]

Thanks for the tip, it works fine!