Help! My linux server seems to have gone to read-only

[iSeriesCodePoet]

I don't know how it happened, but I can't seem to do much of anything on my computer, and I don't know what happened. I am running Debian 3 and this first part is part of what I get on apt-get update.

Hit ftp://mirrors.kernel.org stable/contrib Release
Failed to fetch [URL unfurl="true"]http://security.debian.org/dists/stable/updates/main/binary-i386/Packages[/URL]  Could not open file /var/lib/
apt/lists/partial/security.debian.org_dists_stable_updates_main_binary-i386_Packages - open (30 Read-only file system)
Failed to fetch [URL unfurl="true"]http://www.opengroupware.org/packages/deb/Packages[/URL]  Could not open file /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/[URL unfurl="true"]www.o[/URL]
pengroupware.org_packages_deb_Packages - open (30 Read-only file system)
W: Not using locking for read only lock file /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
W: Not using locking for read only lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock
E: Unable to write to /var/cache/apt/
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.


debian:/home/user# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1             7.7G  2.2G  5.1G  30% /


debian:/home/user# mount
/dev/hda1 on / type ext2 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)

Any ideas?

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[thedaver]

How old is the PC? Is it sufficiently old to be physically capped at 2GB of disk space? I think it's possible (warning bull$shit coming) that an older PC with 2GB HD capacity limits (IDE??) might not play nice with a linux that CAN TRY to address a greater drive size. Your 7GB disk is tipping me off that this might be an older system.

Are you also the correct user to run apt-get?! Otherwise the 'root' user's stuff would be offlimits to a lesser user?! You knew that....

Surfinbox.com Business Internet Services - National Dialup, DSL, T-1 and more.

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[iSeriesCodePoet]

First of all, i should have mentioned that it has been running fine for the last 4 months. Secondly, it a 233 (?) P2 with 256 MB of RAM.

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

Does anyone else have any ideas on how to help me? I want to get this back and working.

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net

 

[flugh]

For some reason, / is being mounted as read-only at boot. Maybe you need to do an 'fsck' on it? I'd fsck the drive, then try 'touch foo' as root in my ~ dir. If that worked, but subsequent apt-get's didn't, I'd Google for some answers in the debian lists, or go to irc.freenode.net #debian and ask what's up!?!? ;-)

WARNING: Bad things might happen, don't say I didn't warn you
Maybe try 'mount -o remount rw /' and see what happens?

----
JBR

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

Well... when I got home. It somehow seemed to have reboot itself and asked for me to fsck. I did now it is running. However, this is the second time this has happened. How would I determine if it is a hardware problem?

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

http://www.koldark.net

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://linux.koldark.net