netbsd boot problem

rc.conf corrupt, halts on boot

[hughes]

Hi, I have a webserver setup on netbsd and am experiencing a problem where rc.conf keeps getting an end of file error. What I need to be able to do is load up some kind of boot utility so I can edit the rc.conf file directly or overwrite it. I have tried a knoppix boot CD, but the filesystem FFS is not supported. I have also tried booting up with the install CD but I cannot mount the hard drive at /dev/hda.

Any help is much appreciated.

[MattyMoose]

You can try booting into single user mode. from the init man page:

1. Single user shell. init may be passed -s from the boot program to
prevent the system from going multi-user and to instead execute a
single user shell without starting the normal daemons. The system
is then quiescent for maintenance work and may later be made to go
to state 2 (multi-user) by exiting the single-user shell (with ^D).

so when you see the boot prompt, pass it the "-s" switch. then edit your rc.conf, and see what's wrong with it.

The alternative is to download the FreeBSD recovery CD, and boot from it, mount the HDD, and edit the offending file. I'm surprised NetBSD doesn't have a recovery shell of some kind on the install CD. (Haven't used NetBSD in years).

HTH!
Matt