Re: bin/12311: machine does not abort boot if /usr fails to mount

[David Holland <dholland-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR bin/12311; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: David Holland <dholland-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: bin/12311: machine does not abort boot if /usr fails to mount
Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 04:28:30 +0000

 On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 02:20:01PM +0000, Christos Zoulas wrote:
  >  Solving this requires AI. For example you can test if /usr/libexec/getty
  >  exists and refuse to go multi-user if it does not, but what about other
  >  kinds of problems that would prevent getty to run? Also putting this kind
  >  of logic in init goes against POLA. I suggest that we close this by saying
  >  you can always reboot to single user.
 
 Why? If /usr is a mounted fs and the mount fails, dropping to single
 user is a rational response. (Same as if fsck on / fails.)
 
 There's a list of critical filesystems (actually more than one) in
 rc.conf; we can in principle use that information to know which mount
 failures matter. It's not entirely trivial as it either requires
 passing the info into mount -a or rehashing parts of mount -a outside
 of mount, but it's certainly doable.
 
 Definitely doesn't belong in init though...
 
 -- 
 David A. Holland
 dholland%netbsd.org@localhost