TIP: Mount root read/write

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TIP: Mount root read/write

Posted by Jason on Thursday March 22, @06:03PM
from the dept.
If you make a mistake editing your /etc/fstab or /etc/rc.conf files, your system may boot to single user mode - surprise! When this happens, FreeBSD only mounts the root (/) filesystem, and it mounts it in read only mode.

To edit the files and fix the problem, you need to re-mount the root filesystem in read/write mode.

To do this use the -u flag with the mount command.

mount -u /

You will now be able to edit any files in /etc - fstab, rc.conf and the like, save them to the disk and reboot the system back to multi-user mode.

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Re: TIP: Mount root read/write
by Jason on Monday September 17, @04:53PM

Also worth mentioning is that you will need to mount the other filesystems in order to have an editor available to you.

The command: mount -t ufs -a, will attempt to mount all the ufs filesystems in your /etc/fstab file- (root, /var and /usr) on a typical installation.

mount -t ufs -a

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