[Bug 919902] [NEW] Booting into "Recovery, " only the root filesystem is mounted.

[David A. Cobb]

Public bug reported:

Running a fresh install of Xubuntu Oneiric.  My disk is 4 partitions plus swap. 
Looking at Bug#518582, it may be significant that all my partitions (except HOME) are now ext4 -- I figured that was now ready for prime time.  

If I boot into the graphic desktop, everything is fine. 
If I attempt to boot into "Recovery Mode,"  the boot process ends with "Cannot find whiptail, booting to maintenance shell."

Before I installed the root password, the maintenance shell was "root"
and no password was asked.  That is a hell of a security hole!

Anyway, if it cannot find whiptail it evidently cannot read my "/usr"
partition.  Typing "mount -v -l" confirms that this is the case -- only
the rootfs is mounted (and the system seems not to see the partition
label.  The listing complains that it cannot write /dev/mtab (Read only
filesystem), therefore the listing may not be correct.  I didn't check
/proc/mounts.

If I do "mount -v -l -a" it does appear to mount the other partitions,
but it still finds /dev/mtab cannot be written.  That makes it difficult
to verify what is mounted.  In any case, this is not a  situation I
would trust to work in.

** Affects: util-linux (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: grub mount oneiric xubuntu

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/919902

Title:
  Booting into "Recovery," only the root filesystem is mounted.

Status in “util-linux” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Running a fresh install of Xubuntu Oneiric.  My disk is 4 partitions plus swap. 
  Looking at Bug#518582, it may be significant that all my partitions (except HOME) are now ext4 -- I figured that was now ready for prime time.  

  If I boot into the graphic desktop, everything is fine. 
  If I attempt to boot into "Recovery Mode,"  the boot process ends with "Cannot find whiptail, booting to maintenance shell."

  Before I installed the root password, the maintenance shell was "root"
  and no password was asked.  That is a hell of a security hole!

  Anyway, if it cannot find whiptail it evidently cannot read my "/usr"
  partition.  Typing "mount -v -l" confirms that this is the case --
  only the rootfs is mounted (and the system seems not to see the
  partition label.  The listing complains that it cannot write /dev/mtab
  (Read only filesystem), therefore the listing may not be correct.  I
  didn't check /proc/mounts.

  If I do "mount -v -l -a" it does appear to mount the other partitions,
  but it still finds /dev/mtab cannot be written.  That makes it
  difficult to verify what is mounted.  In any case, this is not a
  situation I would trust to work in.

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