Mount a partition and chroot into your primary file-system from rescue mode

This article shows how to mount a partition and use the chroot command to access your primary file system from rescue mode.

Begin an investigation of a server in rescue mode

Use the following steps to begin an investigation of a server in rescue mode:

1. Determine your main partition by running the following command:

   fdisk -l
   

   Note: Depending on the version of the base image that you have built from, the partition is either sdb1 (Xen® Classic) or xvdb1 (XenServer®). Choose the largest partition with fdisk -l. This article assumes you use XenServer.

2. Mount the partition by running the following command, replacing xvdb1 if necessary:

   mount /dev/xvdb1 /mnt
   

   When you navigate to the /mnt directory, you should see your file system.

   In some cases, you might need to install a new kernel, remove a bad package, or use xvdb1 as the root (/) directory.

Use xvdb1 as the root directory

Use the following steps to set xvdb1 as the / directory:

1. Mount the necessary file system directories by running the following commands:

   mount -t proc none /mnt/proc
   mount --rbind /sys /mnt/sys
   mount --rbind /dev /mnt/dev
   

2. Set up networking for your session on which you used the chroot operation by running the following commands:

   ln -s /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/resolv.conf
   
   chroot /mnt /bin/bash
   

   The file system is now mounted as the root directory.

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