Corrupt /dev/null

If you find that /dev/null is no longer a block device, and it causes issues during init on Red Hat boxes, you will need to follow these steps to return things to normal:

  • Reboot the server
  • When grub appears, edit your kernel line to include init=/bin/bash at the end
  • Allow the server to boot into the emergency shell
  • Run the following three commands
# rm -rf /dev/null
# mknod /dev/null c 1 3
# chmod 666 /dev/null

You should be back to normal. Make sure that the root users on your server don't use cp or mv with /dev/null as this will cause some pretty ugly issues.

This entry was posted on 18/06/2007 (Monday) at 8:49 pm and is filed under Blog Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Printed from: http://rackerhacker.com/2007/06/18/corrupt-devnull/ .
© Major Hayden 2012.

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  • Welcome! I started this blog as a way to give back to all of the other system administrators who have taught me something in the past. Writing these posts brings me a lot of enjoyment and I hope you find the information useful. If you spot something that's incorrect or confusing, please write a comment and let me know. Drop me a line if there's something you want to know more about and I'll do my best to write a post on the topic.
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