Failed to Start After Moving /var to Another Drive

Question

I am running CentOS 7.

I have /var on a separate hard drive, and smartctl shows that it has some read error. Hence, I would like to move /var to another hard drive.

For the new hard drive, I used gparted to create two partitions (1MB alignment).

Then, I mounted one partition to /mnt/var_new and then rsync -avHPSAX --filter='-x security.selinux' /var/ /mnt/var_new/. And as expected, one file was failed to sync (that just confirmed why smartctl got read errors):

WARNING: cache/yum/x86_64/7/centos-sclo-sclo/gen/primary_db.sqlite failed verification -- update discarded (will try again).
cache/yum/x86_64/7/centos-sclo-sclo/gen/primary_db.sqlite
      1,607,680 100%    2.81MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#3, ir-chk=1309/1607)
rsync: read errors mapping "/var/cache/yum/x86_64/7/centos-sclo-sclo/gen/primary_db.sqlite": Input/output error (5)
ERROR: cache/yum/x86_64/7/centos-sclo-sclo/gen/primary_db.sqlite failed verification -- update discarded.

And no other file was failed to sync (I re-ran rsync again to confirm).

Then, I correctly removed the entry that mounted the old /var and added a new entry to mount the new /var.

Then, I rebooted and then it failed to start with tons of failures (just plain black screen).

Then, I booted into emergency mode, and the new /var did mount correctly that I could see the related files there.

I did read some articles that /var needed to be in 755 mode and /var/tmp needed to have the sticky bit set. I had both.

What did I do wrong?

Thanks!

In recovery mode, `chroot` into your system, mount /var if it's not mounted, and run `restorecon -rv /var` and then try booting normally again. Make sure your `/var` entry in `/etc/fstab` is correct. — Artem S. Tashkinov, Jan 16 '23 at 12:53
@ArtemS.Tashkinov you mean running the command with the new `/var`? — HCSF, Jan 16 '23 at 12:55
I can't help with your booting probs, but if it comes up `yum clean all` should be able to work around that one file being corrupted. — Aaron D. Marasco, Jan 16 '23 at 13:19
@ArtemS.Tashkinov it works! could you make it an answer? I will accept it. Thanks! — HCSF, Jan 16 '23 at 13:45
@AaronD.Marasco yeah, likely `yum clean all` could get rid of the file but for some reason, when I `yum` again, the file got created at the same spot (the corrupted sector). Anyway, thanks for your tips! — HCSF, Jan 16 '23 at 13:47
@HCSF I had meant once you got the machine fixed that the corrupted file isn't that important and can be recreated. — Aaron D. Marasco, Jan 17 '23 at 21:56

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 16 '23 at 13:53

2

In recovery mode:

chroot into your system
mount /var if it's not mounted
restorecon -rv /var and then try booting normally again.

Make sure your /var entry in /etc/fstab is correct.

answered Jan 16 '23 at 13:53

Artem S. Tashkinov

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Failed to Start After Moving /var to Another Drive

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