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#1 2021-02-15 19:48:59

GL640
Member
Registered: 2021-02-15
Posts: 4

/bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off (initramfs)

after a failed backup of a hot running system (  debian )  because of no more space on the destination disk

The vm did not run anymore and a reboot failed
when booting there was a disk disk that needed to be checked and that failed where it CLI ended on : the error /bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off    (initramfs)

so no clue what do to now.

Last edited by GL640 (2021-02-15 19:50:47)

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#2 2021-02-16 09:21:16

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,055

Re: /bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off (initramfs)

(c)XSIBackup just reads data from your VMs, thus: nothing that (c)XSIBackup may have done can break a VM.
Check your (c)ESXi host: that you have indeed enough space to consolidate your VMs, that you have enough space in the virtual FS: vdf -h, etc...

If your boot up requested the VM FS to be checked, please make sure that your production datastore is in a good working state by running some SMART diagnostics. Also, without using the GUI, check whether you have some snapshot for that VM and if the VM is running on top of it: cat yourvm.vmx | grep vmdk.

If so (you will know that because the output of the above command will contain a virtual disk with a zero padded disk/s like: yourvm-000001.vmdk), edit the .vmx file, to point the VDs to the base data files: yourvm.vmdk and restart the VM.

If the above works, decide whether keeping your snapshot or not. If you decide to discard it, delete its files manually.

Do not use the GUI unless you know very well what "deleting a snapshot" is, VMWare terminology and virtualization in general is counterintuitive.

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#3 2021-02-16 13:30:36

GL640
Member
Registered: 2021-02-15
Posts: 4

Re: /bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off (initramfs)

thx for your response

well the message was that the vm would be backedup live.
at 70% there was not enough space so the backup failed and stopped with that error message

--

Cloning disk '/vmfs/volumes/xxxx/xxx/xxxx-000002.vmdk'...
Clone: 70% done.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[xxxx] CLVMKFS1 error: Failed to clone disk: There is not enough space on the file system for the selected operation (13).


--
it was cloning one of the snapshot disks i geuss.

anyway after this i could no longer acces the vm
i then rebooted and then i got a disk error need to fsck the disk message
after that i got a cli but not the menu ( turnkey linus ) and no acces ssh online local.

i am trying to mount the LVM disk so that i can copy the database folder that i hope to replace a new installation with
so i can get my database back that was runing on that machine

funny i did not yet make a backup so this was the first one and now i lost my backup and org. vm... ;-(

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#4 2021-02-16 17:16:12

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,055

Re: /bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off (initramfs)

We really don't know what might have happenned with your VM. Nonetheless by per your own comments, we are 100% sure you didn't damage your VM by trying to perform a backup. Not only because (c)XSIBackup Free Classic just reads data, and that is something available for anybody to fact check, as the source code is fully available, but because your VM was running on top of a snapshot, thus: it is impossible that the base disk was directly accessed, not even in read mode.

On top of that, you were performing that backup by means of vmkfstools, which is a binary built into ESXi that I believe nobody knows to have ever damaged a virtual disk.

If you read our first response carefully, we are offering you the clues to recover your VM from the base disks, which as stated above are 100% safe, unless your primary datastore disks/s are broken, which is something we can't obviously know.

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#5 2021-02-16 18:59:39

GL640
Member
Registered: 2021-02-15
Posts: 4

Re: /bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off (initramfs)

thx

the vmx file pointed to snapshot 0004 so i edited it like you posted to the version without a 0000 .
then i started the vm and have the same problem.
disk errors need to run fsck and i am presented with a initramfs
back where i was when i started this post.

the vm was running and working before i started the cli command to backup using xsi.
then the next morning i looked at the putty screen and got what i posted here before
when i try to acces the vm nothing was responding so i restarted the vm and then i got the disk errors and initramfs prompt cant acces tty

used the fcsk /dev/dm-0 but stil same problem when restart...

Last edited by GL640 (2021-02-16 19:01:32)

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#6 2021-02-17 21:48:41

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,055

Re: /bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off (initramfs)

We are sorry sir, but we can't buy your story. It is equivalent to claiming that you broke the wall by looking at it.

For some FS to be damaged you do need to alter the virtual disk it is installed to, which is in turn imposible by reading it.

Your hard disk could be already damaged with your VM running on RAM and you just realized when you had to reboot it, that's quite common.

Apart from that, nothing prevents you from damaging it a million of other ways.

You may blame the postman for the bad news, but given that you had not checked for free space on the target system, it is very feasible that you had overlooked some other important fact before.

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#7 2021-02-17 22:38:36

GL640
Member
Registered: 2021-02-15
Posts: 4

Re: /bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off (initramfs)

i am not blaming anyone just explaining what happens so maybe someone wil have a sollution.
the vms are running on a NFS nas share
the disks are OK.

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#8 2021-02-18 09:56:07

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,055

Re: /bin/sh can't access tty job control turned off (initramfs)

As said, the most likely explanation is that the virtual disk was already damaged and that you just realized when you tried to perform the backup. (c)ESXi tends to cache as much as possible in memory, thus you can have an apparently working VM sitting on top of some damaged physical or virtual hardware. If that is the case, then only fixing the virtual disk or at least accessing some partition inside is the only way to recover your data. That in turn will depend on the amount and depth of the damage.

As per your comments it is the FS structure inside the guest VM that is damaged. An fsck command may very well fix your issue. The command you posted shows that you may be using LVM2 to partition your disks, if that is the case, you will need to repair the file system on the right logical volume. This guide will help you to understand your layout and fix it.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1124500 … -with-fsck

You normally have three logical layers in an LVM2 layout: PVs, VGs and LVs, namely: physical volumes, volume groups and logical volumes. What you normally format, that is: you draw a file system on are the Logical Volumes.

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https://www.howtoforge.com/linux_lvm

The Device Manager Mapper will usually offer you a good big picture view:

[root@crm ~]# ls -la /dev/mapper/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    100 Jan 26 16:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root   3480 Jan 26 16:08 ..
crw-rw----  1 root root 10, 58 Jan 26 16:10 control
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root      7 Jan 26 16:10 vg_pc01-lv_root -> ../dm-0
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root      7 Jan 26 16:10 vg_pc01-lv_swap -> ../dm-1

The above is a typical default layout on a CentOS system, you will normally want to fsck the root volume.

Performing some SMART diagnostics regularly is critical to prevent this type of situation.

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