3.1. Booting into Rescue Mode

If you experience problems with your system, you can boot into the rescue mode to troubleshoot these problems. Once you are in the rescue mode, your OpenVZ installation is mounted under /mnt/sysimage. You can go to this directory and make the necessary changes to your system.

To enter the rescue mode, do the following:

  1. Boot your system from a OpenVZ DVD or USB drive.
  2. On the welcome screen, click Troubleshooting-→, then Rescue system.
  3. Once OpenVZ boots into the emergency mode, press Ctrl+D to load the rescue environment.
  4. In the rescue environment, you can choose one of the following options:

    • Continue (press 1): mount the OpenVZ installation in read and write mode under /mnt/sysimage.
    • Read-only mount (press 2): mount the OpenVZ installation in read-only mode under /mnt/sysimage.
    • Skip to shell (press 3): load shell, if your file system cannot be mounted; for example, when it is corrupted.
    • Quit (Reboot) (press 4): reboot the server.
  5. Unless you press 4, a shell prompt will appear. In it, run chroot /mnt/sysimage to make the OpenVZ installation the root environment. Now you can run commands and try to fix the problems you are experiencing.
  6. After you fix the problem, run exit to exit the chroot environment, then reboot to restart the system.