During rescue startup boot process halts with "cannot open access to console, the root account is locked"

[Jobst Schmalenbach]

Fedora-Live-Workstation-x86_64-23-10.iso
USB based DVD
Lenovo Yoga

Description of problem:
Originally I tried to boot to rescue mode on a Lenovo Yoga that has Ubuntu installed. I wanted to start rescue mode, then wipe the ubuntu install by formatting the partitions (/ and boot using mkfs.ext4) and replace Ubuntu with Fedora 23.

So I inserted the Fedora 23 DVD, wait for the bios boot menu to appear, select the DVD drive with inserted Fedora 23 and boot to that. When the grub menu appears I select tab and change the kernel line to have "rescue" at the end, delete the "quiet" so I can see what is going on and add "vag=771".

Just after the "Started D-Bus System Message Bus" it stops:

"Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked. See sulogin(8) man page for more details.

As this is "rescue mode" and the idea of rescue mode is to be able to access anything that is on the computer even with a messed up password it is tricky.

How reproducible:
I have tried this on three computers:
 1: a beefy, selfmade workstation that has Fedora 22 installed on the local hard drive
 2: a Dell XPS 13, that has Windows installed (but UEFI disabled)
 3: Lenovo Yoga that has Ubuntu 16.04 installed (UEFI disabled)
all of them have the same issue

Additional info:
It does not matter what setting UEFI boot is set to, I tried this with every possible setting in the BIOS that was given to me by the different manufacturers, I could not get pass the "root account is locked"

Anybody any ideas, please.
thanks
Jobst

[fred roller]

Usually you have an option to replace the existing OS during install.  If
not then choose custom partitions which should give the option to assign
and/or format specific partitions.

Qualifier: I used to keep a data partition which needed to be kept intact.
Wiping the old OSes was easily accomplished, which included a reformat of
specific partitions.

Fred Roller

On Sep 6, 2016 8:08 AM, "Jobst Schmalenbach"  wrote:
> Fedora-Live-Workstation-x86_64-23-10.iso
> USB based DVD
> Lenovo Yoga
>
> Description of problem:
> Originally I tried to boot to rescue mode on a Lenovo Yoga that has Ubuntu
> installed. I wanted to start rescue mode, then wipe the ubuntu install by
> formatting the partitions (/ and boot using mkfs.ext4) and replace Ubuntu
> with Fedora 23.
>
> So I inserted the Fedora 23 DVD, wait for the bios boot menu to appear,
> select the DVD drive with inserted Fedora 23 and boot to that. When the
> grub menu appears I select tab and change the kernel line to have "rescue"
> at the end, delete the "quiet" so I can see what is going on and add
> "vag=771".
>
> Just after the "Started D-Bus System Message Bus" it stops:
>
> "Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked. See sulogin(8)
> man page for more details.
>
> As this is "rescue mode" and the idea of rescue mode is to be able to
> access anything that is on the computer even with a messed up password it
> is tricky.
>
> How reproducible:
> I have tried this on three computers:
>  1: a beefy, selfmade workstation that has Fedora 22 installed on the
> local hard drive
>  2: a Dell XPS 13, that has Windows installed (but UEFI disabled)
>  3: Lenovo Yoga that has Ubuntu 16.04 installed (UEFI disabled)
> all of them have the same issue
>
> Additional info:
> It does not matter what setting UEFI boot is set to, I tried this with
> every possible setting in the BIOS that was given to me by the different
> manufacturers, I could not get pass the "root account is locked"
>
> Anybody any ideas, please.
> thanks
> Jobst
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[Chris Murphy]

On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Jobst Schmalenbach  wrote:
> Fedora-Live-Workstation-x86_64-23-10.iso
> USB based DVD
> Lenovo Yoga
>
> Description of problem:
> Originally I tried to boot to rescue mode on a Lenovo Yoga that has Ubuntu installed. I wanted to start rescue mode, then wipe the ubuntu install by formatting the partitions (/ and boot using mkfs.ext4) and replace Ubuntu with Fedora 23.

You're best off letting the installer delete these partitions because
it'll do a proper teardown and wipe all the signatures for each layer.
Leaving these signatures around can cause problems later.
> So I inserted the Fedora 23 DVD, wait for the bios boot menu to appear, select the DVD drive with inserted Fedora 23 and boot to that. When the grub menu appears I select tab and change the kernel line to have "rescue" at the end, delete the "quiet" so I can see what is going on and add "vag=771".
>
> Just after the "Started D-Bus System Message Bus" it stops:
>
> "Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked. See sulogin(8) man page for more details.
>
> As this is "rescue mode" and the idea of rescue mode is to be able to access anything that is on the computer even with a messed up password it is tricky.

There is a Troubleshooting submenu, and an option Rescue a Fedora
installation. Pick that. And then when you get to the text menu, just
don't have it assemble whatever it finds, and you'll get to a shell
prompt instead. I have no idea what vag=771 means...
> How reproducible:
> I have tried this on three computers:
>  1: a beefy, selfmade workstation that has Fedora 22 installed on the local hard drive
>  2: a Dell XPS 13, that has Windows installed (but UEFI disabled)
>  3: Lenovo Yoga that has Ubuntu 16.04 installed (UEFI disabled)
> all of them have the same issue
>
> Additional info:
> It does not matter what setting UEFI boot is set to, I tried this with every possible setting in the BIOS that was given to me by the different manufacturers, I could not get pass the "root account is locked"

I would start by not including vag=771 as a boot parameter.

[Rick Stevens]

On 09/06/2016 11:03 AM, Chris Murphy wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Jobst Schmalenbach  wrote:
> > Fedora-Live-Workstation-x86_64-23-10.iso
> > USB based DVD
> > Lenovo Yoga
> >
> > Description of problem:
> > Originally I tried to boot to rescue mode on a Lenovo Yoga that has Ubuntu installed. I wanted to start rescue mode, then wipe the ubuntu install by formatting the partitions (/ and boot using mkfs.ext4) and replace Ubuntu with Fedora 23.
>
> You're best off letting the installer delete these partitions because
> it'll do a proper teardown and wipe all the signatures for each layer.
> Leaving these signatures around can cause problems later.
> > So I inserted the Fedora 23 DVD, wait for the bios boot menu to appear, select the DVD drive with inserted Fedora 23 and boot to that. When the grub menu appears I select tab and change the kernel line to have "rescue" at the end, delete the "quiet" so I can see what is going on and add "vag=771".
> >
> > Just after the "Started D-Bus System Message Bus" it stops:
> >
> > "Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked. See sulogin(8) man page for more details.
> >
> > As this is "rescue mode" and the idea of rescue mode is to be able to access anything that is on the computer even with a messed up password it is tricky.
>
> There is a Troubleshooting submenu, and an option Rescue a Fedora
> installation. Pick that. And then when you get to the text menu, just
> don't have it assemble whatever it finds, and you'll get to a shell
> prompt instead. I have no idea what vag=771 means...

I think he means "vga=771" (800x600 8-bit color)
> > How reproducible:
> > I have tried this on three computers:
> >  1: a beefy, selfmade workstation that has Fedora 22 installed on the local hard drive
> >  2: a Dell XPS 13, that has Windows installed (but UEFI disabled)
> >  3: Lenovo Yoga that has Ubuntu 16.04 installed (UEFI disabled)
> > all of them have the same issue
> >
> > Additional info:
> > It does not matter what setting UEFI boot is set to, I tried this with every possible setting in the BIOS that was given to me by the different manufacturers, I could not get pass the "root account is locked"
>
> I would start by not including vag=771 as a boot parameter.

[Jobst Schmalenbach]

Yes indeed - one finger was faster than the other one ...

[sixpack13]

boot parameter  "emergency" ?

https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Debugging/

Title: Booting into Rescue or Emergency Targets
...
If the rescue target will not boot either, the more minimal emergency target might.
...

[Jobst Schmalenbach]

> boot parameter  "emergency" ?
>
> https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Debugging/
>
> Title: Booting into Rescue or Emergency Targets
> ...
> If the rescue target will not boot either, the more minimal emergency target might.
> ...

I have tried the parameter "emergency" - it still ends up "cannot open access to console, the root account is locked" .
I, too, tried different combinations of the kernel command line switches using both rescue and emergency.
I, too, read the documents about the rescue switches, in the Fedora 23 documentation under https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/23/html/Installation_Guide/sect-... it is set as "inst.rescue".

I have no idea why this is happening - it used to be so easy.

[Chris Murphy]

On Tue, Sep 6, 2016, 8:55 PM Jobst Schmalenbach 
wrote:
> > boot parameter  "emergency" ?
> >
> > https://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/Debugging/
> >
> > Title: Booting into Rescue or Emergency Targets
> > ...
> > If the rescue target will not boot either, the more minimal emergency
>
> target might.
> > ...
>
> I have tried the parameter "emergency" - it still ends up "cannot open
> access to console, the root account is locked" .
> I, too, tried different combinations of the kernel command line switches
> using both rescue and emergency.
> I, too, read the documents about the rescue switches, in the Fedora 23
> documentation under
> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/23/html/Installation_Guide/sect-...
> it is set as "inst.rescue".
>
> I have no idea why this is happening - it used to be so easy.

Exactly how are you creating the media? And if you boot the first entry at
the boot menu without any modifications what happens? What about the basic
video option in the Troubleshooting menu?

Chris Murphy

[Chris Murphy]

Oh wait!

The live media does not support rescue.
So this is confusing but there's two kinds of rescue. There's systemd
rescue.target and there's Anaconda rescue a Fedora system.

Since systemd always requires a root password, and root on lives has no
password set, both emergency.target and rescue.target (which includes 1 and
single as aliases), these targets are non functional on lives.

But for Anaconda on netinstall and DVD, rescue launches a rescue feature of
the installer. But that doesn't work on lives.

So you just have to boot the live without options, and either do the
teardown manually using Terminal and wipefs, or trust the installer to do
it (it uses wipefs and does proper teardowns)

Chris Murphy

[Joe Zeff]

On 09/06/2016 09:16 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
> I have tried the parameter "emergency" - it still ends up "cannot open
> access to console, the root account is locked" .

Have you tried using init=/bin/sh instead?