4 Troubleshooting

4.1 Repairing an Existing FreeBSD Installation

FreeBSD features a “fixit” option in the top menu of the sysinstall(8) installation program. It provides a shell with common programs from the FreeBSD base system; this environment is useful for repairing or troubleshooting an existing FreeBSD installation. To use fixit mode, you will also need either the fixit.flp floppy, generated in the same fashion as the boot floppies, or the “live filesystem” CDROM. In multi-disk FreeBSD distributions, the live filesystem image is typically located on the installation disk. Note that some UNIX system administration experience is required to use the fixit option.

Generally, there are two ways of invoking fixit mode. Users who can boot from the FreeBSD installation CDROM, should do so and then choose the “fixit” item from the main sysinstall(8) menu. Then select the “CDROM/DVD” option from the fixit menu.

Users who cannot boot from CDROM, but can boot from floppy disk, require a few more steps. In addition to the boot.flp and kernX.flp disks required for installation, create the fixit.flp floppy disk, in the same way as the other floppy disks. Follow the instructions for booting the installation program from floppy disk until reaching the main sysinstall(8) menu. At that point, choose the “fixit” item from the main sysinstall(8) menu. Then select the “Floppy” option from the fixit menu, and insert the fixit.flp floppy disk when prompted to do so.

The CDROM and floppy fixit environments are similar, but not identical. Both offer a shell with a variety of commands available for checking, repairing and examining filesystems and their contents. The CDROM version of fixit provides all of the commands and programs available in the FreeBSD base system, through the live filesystem. By contrast, the floppy fixit environment can only offer a subset of commands due to space constraints.

In the floppy version of fixit, some standalone utilities can be found in /stand or /mnt2/stand. In the CDROM version of fixit, these same programs can be found in /stand or /mnt2/rescue (as well as the rest of the programs from the live filesystem, which can be found under /mnt).

4.2 Common Installation Problems for Alpha/AXP Architecture Users