I’m in Columbia, MO, visiting with Patricia’s family, for the next couple weeks (until I go to Seattle for the Spacefest on November 6th. But I’ve got the laptop, so readers may not notice much difference.
Category Archives: Administrative
Linux Problem
Can anyone figure out why /home is mounting read-only at boot?
Here’s my fstab:
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Sat Apr 18 17:14:21 2015
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under ‘/dev/disk’
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more info
#
/dev/mapper/fedora_new–host–5-root / ext4 defaults 1 1
UUID=058cc312-d471-41b9-a346-6ecf7dd2484b /boot ext4 defaults 1 2
#/dev/mapper/fedora_new–host–5-home /home ext4 defaults 1 2
/dev/mapper/fedora_new–host-home /home ext4 defaults 1 2
/dev/mapper/fedora_new–host–5-swap swap swap defaults 0 0
Note that /dev/mapper/fedora_new–host–5-root is an SSD (as is boot), and /dev/mapper/fedora_new–host-home is a physical hard drive.
And here’s /proc/mounts:
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
devtmpfs /dev devtmpfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,size=7787916k,nr_inodes=1946979,mode=755 0 0
securityfs /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,seclabel,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000 0 0
tmpfs /run tmpfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,mode=755 0 0
tmpfs /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs ro,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd 0 0
pstore /sys/fs/pstore pstore rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/memory cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup/devices cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices 0 0
configfs /sys/kernel/config configfs rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/mapper/fedora_new–host–5-root / ext4 rw,seclabel,relatime,data=ordered 0 0
selinuxfs /sys/fs/selinux selinuxfs rw,relatime 0 0
systemd-1 /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc autofs rw,relatime,fd=24,pgrp=1,timeout=300,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,seclabel 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,seclabel,relatime 0 0
hugetlbfs /dev/hugepages hugetlbfs rw,seclabel,relatime 0 0
mqueue /dev/mqueue mqueue rw,seclabel,relatime 0 0
nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd nfsd rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /boot ext4 rw,seclabel,relatime,data=ordered 0 0
/dev/mapper/fedora_new–host-home /home ext4 ro,seclabel,relatime,data=ordered 0 0
sunrpc /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs rpc_pipefs rw,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /run/user/42 tmpfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=1559960k,mode=700,uid=42,gid=42 0 0
tmpfs /run/user/1000 tmpfs rw,seclabel,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=1559960k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
gvfsd-fuse /run/user/1000/gvfs fuse.gvfsd-fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000 0 0
fusectl /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw,relatime 0 0
binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw,relatime 0 0
[Update a while later]
OK, clearly the disk is getting corrupted. I put in a file check option in the fstab, and it (temporarily) mounted it read-write at boot, but after working a while it became remounted read-only.
Any suggestions?
[Update a while later]
I had a spare 2T drive that I hooked up, and made it /home at boot (it was an old original, and the new drive was actually backup of it, so it had a lot of the data on it already). It’s working fine so far, except that when I copied my Gnome user configuration data over and rebooted, it decided that I wanted to have a Spanish desktop. I’ve changed the system settings to en_US, and even ‘localectl status’ give me:
System Locale: LANG=en_US
VC Keymap: us
X11 Layout: us
I can’t figure out where in the configuration files it’s getting the idea that I want to compute en Espanol, but while I can stumble along in it, it’s quite annoying.
[Wednesday-morning update]
OK, I determined that the language is changed in Gnome in “Settings,” but in the Spanish interface, that gets translated into “Configuracion,” so I was looking in the wrong place. So, now all is well, as far as I can tell. And as of this morning both the old and the new drive remain read/write. So still not sure what the problem was, but it seems to be a lot better now.
[Update a while later]
Wow. That drive had been causing problems I hadn’t even realized. My system had been running like molasses, with lots of runaway processes (like in Chrome). That’s completely disappeared. It’s like greased lightning now, even with several instances and many dozens of tabs open in Firefox.
My Return Trip From Hell
I started to leave Las Cruces for LA on Thursday evening. I got back last night.
I missed my flight on American Thursday night by not allowing enough time to get to the airport in El Paso. They put me on standby for a flight at 6:15 the next morning, so I kept my rental and got a room a couple miles away.
I got to the airport, but the flight to LA (via Phoenix) was full. My next opportunity was a non-stop to LA at noon, but also standby. This was all complicated by the fact that an early-morning Dallas flight had been delayed due to mechanical issues (brakes) and it was a nightmare for the agents to reroute people while they dealt with the issue. I was in a long line with Dallas people, and in front of a couple heading to New Orleans. But I did get my standby opportunity, and spent the morning working on my laptop.
At noon, the board for the flight was down, and there were no standbys listed. I was told to wait, but once again, it was a full flight (including Garrett Reisman of SpaceX).
My next chance was another one through Phoenix, at 2:45, also overbooked. I missed that one too, but as soon as I did, I went over to the agent who had switched me to that one, and just asked her if I could get to Dallas (the next chance out of ELP was the flight that I’d missed first thing in the morning, though this time I would have been confirmed). I figured that once I was in Dallas, I’d have a lot more options. Fortunately (this is about 3 PM), the Dallas flight that had been delayed since early morning had finally gotten its brakes fixed, and was about to depart. Because they’d rerouted people, it had a few empty seats. The one they issued me, by bizarre coincidence, ended up being between the couple heading to New Orleans that had been behind me in line hours earlier.
My confirmed flight to LA from Dallas was at 10:10 PM, to arrive about 11 in LA, meaning about a four-hour layover. When I got into Dallas, I looked at the board, and saw another flight leaving from another terminal in about ten minutes, so I took the tram over. But it was overbooked. I went to look for another agent who wasn’t busy boarding a plane, and asked him if I could get out earlier than the 10:10 (there was an 8:45 on the board). He looked, and said, how about 7:30? I told him, sure, but I didn’t know there was a 7:30. He told me that it was a 4:20 that had had mechanical issues, but would be ready to go. I asked him for a window seat, and he said sure, and gave me a pass, with priority boarding (sweet).
Turns out that it was a 767 that they’d brought in to replace a 737 that they couldn’t fix, so it had lots of empty seats. As a bonus (which believe me, I hadn’t asked for), they put a cute nursing student from TCU on a weekend visit to her sister in LA next to me (though I later suggested that she take the empty row behind, when she wanted to study but the woman in front of her put the seat back).
So thanks to maintenance issues with American, my day that had started out disastrously ended up on a run of good luck. I got into LA about 8:30, after flying about 2800 miles to get 800, and was beat, but I’m recuperating this morning.
ISPCS
I got up early this morning, flew to El Paso, and then drove up to Alamagordo to the space history museum. In Las Cruces now. I’ll check in from the event tomorrow.
Fedora Question
I was thinking of upgrading to 22, and I belatedly discovered that I was still running 20. Do I have to fedup to 21 first, or can I safely just go straight to 22?
[Update a while later]
OK, just discovered why I’m running 20 when I thought it was 21. All this time I’d been thinking that I was booting from my SSD, but it turns out that I’ve been booting from my hard drive, with the older OS on it. I went in to change the boot order, and I can’t find the SSD. The OS can see it with pvdisplay, the BIOS shows it in system status, but it doesn’t appear anywhere in the boot menu. Anyone have any idea what’s going on, or how to get it to show up?
[Update a few minutes later]
Wow, weirder and weirder. I unplugged the hard drive, then rebooted. It booted with the SSD. I went back into the BIOS, and now the SSD is a boot option. I made it highest priority, then shut down and plugged in the hard drive again. Now in the BIOS the hard drive won’t show up as a boot option. Which is OK, because I didn’t want to be booting from it, but it seems like strange behavior from the BIOS.
Anyway, I’m booted into 21 now, and doing a ton of updates. It had been booting from the wrong drive for weeks, and I hadn’t realized it.
Light Posting
I’m at the AIAA Space 2015 Conference in Pasadena through tomorrow. A lot going on, and not a lot of time to blog. A lot of useful inputs to the Kickstarter project here. Probably back to normal on Thursday.
Still On The Road
We started heading back from Denver yesterday. Spent the night in Durango (where we had what seems to be a new Colorado cuisine — Nepalese), and heading down through Monument Valley this morning, with plans to end up for the night at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Not sure what connectivity will be like there.
[Sunday-morning update]
I had connectivity in the park via my phone, but decided to just relax. If you have only been to the south rim, I highly recommend the north. It’s more spectacular, in my opinion, and much less crowded, due to the fact that it’s much more remote, and can’t just be driven through. In Phoenix this morning, and headed back to LA a little later. Back to business as usual then, except I’ll be headed up to the New Space conference on Wednesday.
Forecast: Light And Scattered Blogging
We’re heading out to Colorado tomorrow for a business vacation, including meetings about the project in the Denver area. We’ll be staying in Vegas tomorrow night, where rumor has it they’ll have fireworks (as they probably will in more abundance on Saturday, the actual 4th). The plan is to be back in LA by the twelfth.
It’s actually the first driving vacation we’ll have been on in the west (not counting California only) in years. I’ll take a laptop, and I’ll probably be checking in, but we’ll be spending a lot of time in the car, so blogging will be sporadic.
Light Blogging
I’ve already started to work on the project (even though I don’t get the money for a couple weeks). Re-reading the depressing NRC report from last summer. It will be my point of departure for the remix.
CPU Fan
The noise is driving me nuts. It rattles and ticks, and sounds like it’s about to fail. It’s just a few months old. I pulled the cooler assembly off, and removed the fan, and replaced it with an older one. I kept the heat sink, because the older one was about half the size and cooling capacity. But the old fan makes similar noises. I’ll go buy a new one at Fry’s, but I wonder if something else is going on.
[Update a while later]
OK, it’s not the fan. I stopped it momentarily, and there was no change. The question is: What is it? I can’t figure out exactly where it’s coming from. I only have one physical hard drive hooked up, and it’s not in the case.
[Update a while later]
OK, I changed power supplies. It’s better, though the noise is still there, and it’s not coming from the power supply. Still can’t quite isolate it. It’s now more of a steady ticking. It was doing it at 2 Hz or so, and now sounds like maybe 10, and not as loud.
[Update a while later]
This makes me wish I had a stethoscope.
[Sunday-afternoon update]
OK, got a stethoscope. The sound is not coming from anywhere or anything on the motherboard. I only hear it when I touch the case itself, and it seems to be being transferred through the metal. Still no clear where it’s coming from.
[Bumped]
[Update a while later]
I picked the case up off the desk, and the sound changed slightly. I set it back down, and it’s changed a little again. But whatever was rattling is still rattling. I feel like I may have to pull the board and reinstall. Part of the problem is that the front edge of the board doesn’t have much support, due to configuration.
[Monday-morning update]
OK, when I push the case away from the motherboard, it gets a little quieter.
[Early afternoon update]
OK, starting to think it is supernatural. I tried recording it, so people could hear what I’m talking about, but nothing came out. It was like that old tape in The Sixth Sense. But I upped the mike gain, and aimed it better (it’s my headset, which is pretty directional), and now you can hear it, if you crank up speakers. It’s about a 3Hz resonance.
[Wednesday-afternoon update]
I FOUND IT!
There is a huge case fan in the front that I had previously been unaware existed. It turned out to be impossible to R&R, due to being trapped behind a riveted drive cage. So I just unplugged it. The bad news is that I now know how loud my PSU and CPU fans are. But it’s still a huge improvement. White noise instead of rattling.
[Bumped]