How to reboot to Single User mode without keyboard

[Hofuzz]

Hi All,

I would like to reboot one of my OS X servers into single user mode so I can do a fsck on it. What's the command (reboot -XXX?) to do so? I dont have a display card or keyboard hooked up to it.

sorry if this has been asked already, it seems seraching the forums is disabled?

thanks.

[edadams]

You will need a keyboard and video card to do this, as far as I know

Here is the Apple kbase page on different boot options on a headless Xserve-
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75489

[sourcehound]

Originally Posted by Hofuzz

Hi All,

I would like to reboot one of my OS X servers into single user mode so I can do a fsck on it. What's the command (reboot -XXX?) to do so? I dont have a display card or keyboard hooked up to it.

sorry if this has been asked already, it seems seraching the forums is disabled?

thanks.

The NVRAM command can get you into single user mode for the next reboot. BUT BE CAREFUL. As far as I know, ssh won't work in single user mode, and you'll need a serial port connection to the Xserve (if that's what it is) to control it in single user mode after setting the NVRAM properties like so below:

nvram boot-args=\"-s\"

Read the man page for nvram carefully. However, I know of no graceful way to control any OS X Machine in SUM without a keyboard.

[Hofuzz]

Thanks for your responses. I'm reading up on NVRAM.

But according to this it seems rlogin/ssh to it would be futile:
http://www.macosx.com/content/faq.ph...User-Mode.html

I guess the only chance to do a fsck on it is to get it in single user mode?

Originally Posted by sourcehound

The NVRAM command can get you into single user mode for the next reboot. BUT BE CAREFUL. As far as I know, ssh won't work in single user mode, and you'll need a serial port connection to the Xserve (if that's what it is) to control it in single user mode after setting the NVRAM properties like so below:

nvram boot-args=\"-s\"

Read the man page for nvram carefully. However, I know of no graceful way to control any OS X Machine in SUM without a keyboard.

[sourcehound]

Originally Posted by Hofuzz

Thanks for your responses. I'm reading up on NVRAM.

But according to this it seems rlogin/ssh to it would be futile:
http://www.macosx.com/content/faq.ph...User-Mode.html

I guess the only chance to do a fsck on it is to get it in single user mode?

Well you also have the option of using a tool like DiskWarrior to rebuild the directory. Starting with 10.4.3 you can run fsck from Disk Utility but can't change the drive, only verify that it's OK or not.

However, there's one option that doesn't really give you any feedback, and that's to book in "Safe" boot mode, by holding down the shift key at startup. This runs a longer and more complete fsck.

But if you want to mess with the directory, you still need to boot in SUM.