[SOLVED] After you are done laughing at this one, any advice is welcome (no network or graphics)

[tamuin]

So, through a couple of poor choices I managed to blacklist both my graphics card and my network card.

I had passed through my graphics card to a VM, so I black listed the driver. That was just fine and dandy but then I noticed my RTL8125 NIC was pretty slow, and I read that this can be fixed by installing the proper RTL8125 dkms driver and blacklist the RTL8169 driver. I thought I had installed the RTL8125 driver properly, but clearly I did not because when I rebooted I found myself without a network connection and unable to use a local monitor.

I am going to try booting from a USB drive and deleting the blacklist file I created (/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-r8169.conf), but I suspect that won't work.

If anyone (after having a good chuckle) can recommend an easy way to remedy this it would be much appreciated.

 

[leesteken]

Boot a Linux Live USB (with ZFS support if necessary or Proxmox installer in Debug mode) and chroot into your existing installation and change the relevant files in /etc/modprobe.d/ and run update-initramfs. It's much like GRUB repair: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Recover_From_Grub_Failure#General_advice

 

[gfngfn256]

I'd add/replace with a different graphics card you have laying around & then you can make all changes from console itself. Maybe you could even use some USB to VGA/HDMI, although you'd have to find one that's supported out of the box - without the need to install a driver.

Edit: Yes I'm guilty, I had my chuckle!

 

[Ramalama]

The keyboard still works...
i would boot the machine simply, blindly type root and your password, enter and then:
insmod r8125
systemctl restart networking

Then you should get ssh access again

 

[tamuin]

Thanks Folks! All sound good, I will try these when I get home from work...what a bonehead move on my part.

I will report back on what I used/worked...for posterity.

 

[Kingneutron]

For future consideration, it's highly recommended to make a full system backup before messing around with things ;-)

 

[zzz09700]

I figure boot with an ISO/the rescue or or Live CD mode to fix your kernel module blacklist is all you need to get yourself out of struggle? Yes?

Basically do what #2 suggests, you'll live(and so will your PVE and all VMs), no doubt on that.

 

[mike15301]

you can just skip the live cd and append "init=/bin/sh" to your kernel cmd line to drop you into a root shell

 

[tamuin]

For others that find themselves in a similar situation, I had no luck with the method suggested by @Ramalama, but as others suggested deleting the relevant files in /etc/modprobe.d/ and then doing an update-initramfs worked just fine.

 

[70tas]

can you clarify how you got it working?

 

[tamuin]

can you clarify how you got it working?

Sorry for the delayed response.

As @Ramalama pointed out, my keyboard was still working, so I blindly typed in my user and password. I then tried typing what he suggested:
insmod r8125
systemctl restart networking

but it did not work for me. Fortunately, anytime I alter some configuration file I always make a copy of the original so I blindly typed in:
cd /etc
cp modprobe.d.old modprobe.d
rm modprobe.d/blacklist-r8169.conf
update-initramfs

waited a few minutes and then blindly typed:
shutdown reboot now

Not very elegant, I just thought it would be the quickest and worth a try, and it worked for me. If I did not have a copy of the original /etc/modprobe.d file I would have booted a live CD with zfs support and edited it as @leesteken and others suggested. I don't know how to do what @mike15301 suggests, but a quick google search probably would have solved that, his suggestion might have been easier.

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