I logged in as root and I cannot change any permissions or move any file. When I try: chmod 755 /tmp for example it gives:
chmod: changing permissions of `tmp': Read-only file system

how did this happen and what do I do to fix it?

System is Linux fedora I think (no Cpanel)

Are you running 2.6 kernel.? Your filesystem is mounted read only which means yoru drive has errors. 2.6 remounts it readonly if there are any kind of errors. Have the datacenter reboot and run a fsck

you might be able to still see if any errors dumped to the console by running

dmesg

Originally posted by Levi1
I logged in as root and I cannot change any permissions or move any file. When I try: chmod 755 /tmp for example it gives:
chmod: changing permissions of `tmp': Read-only file system

how did this happen and what do I do to fix it?

System is Linux fedora I think (no Cpanel)

Hey Levi1.

Execute the ' mount ' command in that server and past the result here....

we have an experience at the past on this and eventually the hard drive is the cause of the problem. Go through what thelinuxguy and others suggested for you and also you might want to get ready to replace the hard drive

Andy is right, These issues are generally caused by a faulty disk causing the kernel to panic and boot into read only.

You may want to get your DC to check out the harddisk, Or you can run SMART locally and check what it gives back.

If you want any more help, You'll need to paste back the smart result, df -h and cat /etc/fstab

Cheers

Does the other file systems give you same error? Better paste the content of the /etc/fstab. If it is bad HDD then only DC can give you some fresh air.

CeriPlex,

how do I run "SMART"?


Thanks everyone for your help, here is the output of he following commands:

mount:

/dev/hda3 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)


df -h:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda3 110G 51G 54G 49% /


cat /etc/fstab:

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0



dmesg:

Linux version 2.6.5-1.358 (bhcompile@bugs.build.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.3.3 20040412 (Red Hat Linux 3.3.3-7)) #1 Sat May 8 09:04:50 EDT 2004
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000000dff0000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000dff0000 - 000000000dff3000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 000000000dff3000 - 000000000e000000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
223MB LOWMEM available.
zapping low mappings.
On node 0 totalpages: 57328
DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1
Normal zone: 53232 pages, LIFO batch:12
HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:1
DMI 2.2 present.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 VIAP4M ) @ 0x000f6ec0
ACPI: RSDT (v001 VIAP4M AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x0dff3000
ACPI: FADT (v001 VIAP4M AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x0dff3040
ACPI: MADT (v001 VIAP4M AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x0dff6ac0
ACPI: DSDT (v001 VIAP4M AWRDACPI 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000e) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x408
Built 1 zonelists
Kernel command line: ro root=LABEL=/
mapped 4G/4G trampoline to ffff3000.
Initializing CPU#0
CPU 0 irqstacks, hard=02345000 soft=02344000
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order 10: 8192 bytes)
Detected 2626.438 MHz processor.
Using pmtmr for high-res timesource
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Memory: 223972k/229312k available (1540k kernel code, 4656k reserved, 599k data, 144k init, 0k highmem)
Calibrating delay loop... 5193.72 BogoMIPS
Security Scaffold v1.0.0 initialized
SELinux: Initializing.
SELinux: Starting in permissive mode
There is already a security framework initialized, register_security failed.
Failure registering capabilities with the kernel
selinux_register_security: Registering secondary module capability
Capability LSM initialized
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
CPU: After generic identify, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: bfebfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K
CPU: L2 cache: 128K
CPU: After all inits, caps: bfebf3ff 00000000 00000000 00000080
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU#0: Intel P4/Xeon Extended MCE MSRs (12) available
CPU: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz stepping 09
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfba20, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040326
ACPI: IRQ9 SCI: Level Trigger.
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing
ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (00:00)
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 *11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 *11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 *10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 1 3 4 *5 6 7 10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK0] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNK1] (IRQs 1 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 14 15)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKA] (IRQs 20)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKB] (IRQs 21)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKC] (IRQs 22)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [ALKD] (IRQs 23)
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 10
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 5
PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
PCI: if you experience problems, try using option 'pci=noacpi' or even 'acpi=off'
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x07 (Driver version 1.16ac)
apm: overridden by ACPI.
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
audit(1109521421.4294967131:0): initialized
Total HugeTLB memory allocated, 0
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.1
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
SELinux: Registering netfilter hooks
Initializing Cryptographic API
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
ACPI: Fan [FAN] (on)
ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports C1)
ACPI: Thermal Zone [THRM] (40 C)
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12
Linux agpgart interface v0.100 (c) Dave Jones
agpgart: Detected VIA P4M266x/P4N266 chipset
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 176M
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xe8000000
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 8 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 16384K size 1024 blocksize
divert: not allocating divert_blk for non-ethernet device lo
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:11.1
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
VP_IDE: VIA vt8235 (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci0000:00:11.1
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xdc00-0xdc07, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xdc08-0xdc0f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
hda: WDC WD1200BB-22GUA0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: WDC WD400BB-75FJA1, ATA DISK drive
Using cfq io scheduler
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: max request size: 1024KiB
hda: 234441648 sectors (120034 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, UDMA(100)
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3
hdb: max request size: 128KiB
hdb: 78125000 sectors (40000 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)
hdb: hdb1 hdb2 hdb3 hdb4 < hdb5 hdb6 >
ide-floppy driver 0.99.newide
usbcore: registered new driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new driver hid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.0:USB HID core driver
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
input: ImPS/2 Logitech Wheel Mouse on isa0060/serio1
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard on isa0060/serio0
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 16384 bind 32768)
Initializing IPsec netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S4 S5)
checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (no cpio magic); looks like an initrd
Freeing initrd memory: 187k freed
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 144k freed
SELinux: Disabled at runtime.
SELinux: Unregistering netfilter hooks
ACPI: Power Button (FF) [PWRF]
ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: irq 5, pci mem 10831000
ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:10.3: USB 2.0 enabled, EHCI 1.00, driver 2003-Dec-29
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 6 ports detected
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.2
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: irq 11, io base 0000d000
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: irq 11, io base 0000d400
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: irq 10, io base 0000d800
uhci_hcd 0000:00:10.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 4-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
device-mapper: 4.1.0-ioctl (2003-12-10) initialised: dm@uk.sistina.com
Adding 586364k swap on /dev/hda2. Priority:-1 extents:1
IA-32 Microcode Update Driver: v1.13 <tigran@veritas.com>
microcode: No suitable data for cpu 0
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP]
parport0: irq 7 detected
SCSI subsystem initialized
inserting floppy driver for 2.6.5-1.358
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
via-rhine.c:v1.10-LK1.1.19-2.5 July-12-2003 Written by Donald Becker
http://www.scyld.com/network/via-rhine.html
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth0
eth0: VIA VT6102 Rhine-II at 0xee001000, 00:11:09:97:0e:f2, IRQ 11.
eth0: MII PHY found at address 1, status 0x786d advertising 05e1 Link 41e1.
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
ip_conntrack version 2.1 (1791 buckets, 14328 max) - 296 bytes per conntrack
eth0: Setting full-duplex based on MII #1 link partner capability of 41e1.
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP]
parport0: irq 7 detected
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
lp0: console ready
NET: Registered protocol family 10
Disabled Privacy Extensions on device 022db720(lo)
IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
divert: not allocating divert_blk for non-ethernet device sit0
eth0: no IPv6 routers present



What do you guys suggest?

You could try

mount -o rw,remount /

See if that helps but of course it could give you data intergrity problems

Rus

SMART must be enabled in the BIOS and ask the DC to make it on. However there can be some SELinux issue with your system.