sudo: unable to open … Read-only file system on proxmox server

Question

I am running into a strange problem with my dedicated server. I Installed proxmox VE on the server, every few days the system goes to the mode

> sudo: unable to open … Read-only file system

After I reboot the system it worked well few more days and then ran to the same problem again. Do you have any idea about how to fix it? or what could it be behind this problem?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 17 '16 at 06:56

1

The first thing you will need to do is find out why your filesystem is going read only. Once you know why, you can set about solving the problem.

The first thing I would do is go and look in my logs and find out what error messages are being logged when the problem initially occurs, This should give sufficient detail for you to research further, apply scientific method and come to a conclusion that solves the problem.

answered Dec 17 '16 at 06:56

user9517

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The problem is whe this problem happens normally no command works, it always says -bash bla bla bla read only file sys\te – Nashwan Mustafa Dec 17 '16 at 08:19
I would expect your logs to be persistent across reboots. – user9517 Dec 17 '16 at 08:23
so I have o other choice rather than waiting a next release of this problem which I am hopping not to see it again, as I am afraid there could be some hardware problems behind appearing this issue. – Nashwan Mustafa Dec 17 '16 at 09:24
Which bit of look in your logs do you not understand ? – user9517 Dec 17 '16 at 10:16
dmesg log or syslog file you mean? – Nashwan Mustafa Dec 17 '16 at 10:22
Both. Without more information, we cannot say if this will show up as a kernel or user space message. Send syslog to a remote host so it is preserved in any future occurrences. – John Mahowald Dec 19 '16 at 03:55

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 23 '16 at 02:20

In my experience when the kernel suddenly mounts a filesystem read only (most of the time only the root filesystem by default is configured to do that) it is to prevent damage because it detected problems with the filesystem. In that case if your log files are not on a separate partition then you may not even see any indication something went wrong.

I would run a full filesystem check and repair manually on the affected partition. In addition it may be useful to use a tool such as smartctl to find out if the disk's SMART system detected any problems.

Eventually though in many such cases the disk ends up being bad and dies rather sooner than later.

It may pay off to try the check/repair route and it may keep working fine for a few months longer, or even years. But it probably is best to get a replacement disk and copy everything over rather than to try and fix it. Especially if it happens again after you checked and repaired the filesystem.

sudo: unable to open … Read-only file system on proxmox server

2 Answers2