[TriLUG] Help Please - Strange Filesystem Error on Boot

[Scott Chilcote]

Hi Folks,

The problem described below has been fixed.  Thanks to those who offered 
help.

In case anyone's curious, I found the answer by searching the linux 
newsgroups in google.

My /dev/null device appears to have been re-created improperly, although 
I have no idea how.

It was:

   -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     26 Feb 25 19:44 /dev/null.old

I re-created it using "mknod -m 666 /dev/null c 1 3", after which it is

   crw-rw-rw- 1 root root  1,  3 Feb 25 17:08 /dev/null

After this change the system boots correctly.

I definitely haven't messed with any device files recently so I'm 
stumped, but the machine works now.  The possibility that it's been 
rooted bothers me, but it's been kept fairly secure and is almost never 
left sitting online.

Thanks,

Scott C.