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From: larry@geowhiz.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Being `well and truly up the creek'
Message-ID: <281@geowhiz.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Nov-85 14:35:57 EST
Article-I.D.: geowhiz.281
Posted: Wed Nov 13 14:35:57 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Nov-85 05:23:25 EST
References: <2968@sun.uucp> <2200@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: larry@geowhiz.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
Distribution: net
Organization: UW Madison, Geology Dept.
Lines: 19

In article <2200@umcp-cs.UUCP> chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
>One of the most, er, `interesting' things that can happen to a root
>file system is to lose /dev (have it turn into an ordinary file or
>soemthing).  If you have lost /dev, *and nothing else*, it would
>seem perfectly reasonable that /etc/init could come up single user
>by creating a new console device.  Of course, it will not, and one
>is forced to recover with standalone programs or a 4.2-style minifs.

Er, ahum, I, well, I did this a while ago via an otherwise useful utility
called nu (it ended up doing a rm -rf on /, I eventually figured out that
something was wrong when "No rmdir" was repeatedly shouted at me).  I was
out /dev & /bin, but still had /etc and /usr.  Using /etc/mknod, I was 
able to put back a /dev/rmt0 back and do a dump before doing the standalone
restor.  Very useful as I had done a fair bit of work that day....  
-- 
Larry McVoy						+----------------+
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