pam_nologin not allowing root login, and i need access to local files

[bill209]

VM OS: debian xcfe

have been running this VM successfully for several months; all of a sudden, when tryinng to login with ROOT, i get the message: "System is booting up. See pam_nologin(8)"

i've looked through the error logs but could not find anything to point me in the right direction - though i am a linux noob and may have missed the pertinent logfile.
i have tried disabling pam_nologin by moving the /run/login file (it keeps popping back) and then by directly modifying the /etc/pam.d/login file. no luck.

i assume the pam_nologin is a symptom and not the problem; solving the issue would be optimal, but a work around to pam_login would allow me to extract work files and then i can can rebuild a new VM.

fyi, i CAN login via the GRUB reccovery mode option using ROOT, and CAN see the files i need. however, i do not know how to copy them off the local drive as the network is not connected. (ie MOUNT fails with "mount nfs: network is unreachable"

note: curious, could this be related to me accidentally doing a 'shutdown -k' at some point. not sure i ever did that but i know it disables logins.
note: i am forced to do a 'stop' on the VM as 'shutdowns' do not work. also, doing a 'halt' from within the command line also seems to hang.

i really appreciate any help,
bill

 

[oguz]

hi,

i don't know the solution to the login problem off the top of my head, but the easiest way of extracting the files from the VM would be mounting the virtual disk on your PVE host and copy the files to the PVE.

 

[bill209]

@oguz , that sounds like a great solution. i did not realize that i could mount a VM's virtual disk on the host. when i look at the hardware section of the VM, hard disk (virtio0) is listed as:

local-lvm:vm-101-disk-0:size=128G

the documents are stored in /Documents.

however, i am unsure how to mount this to my PVE host. i've tried different mount commands but have not been successful. do you know the specific mount command that is needed?

thanks again for the help!
bill

 

[oguz]

for example:

root@pmx:~# lvscan
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/swap' [4.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/root' [31.75 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/data' [73.87 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/vm-100-disk-0' [8.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/vm-101-disk-0' [8.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/vm-102-disk-0' [8.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/vm-103-disk-0' [8.00 GiB] inherit
root@pmx:~# mkdir /mnt/vmdisk0
root@pmx:~# mount /dev/pve/vm-101-disk-0 /mnt/vmdisk0

 

[bill209]

i seem to be failing you at every turn... : |

when trying to mount i was getting "wrong fs type" message, so i installed NFS, and added "-t nfs" to the mount command, but am now getting the following:

(command) mount -t nfs /dev/pve/vm-101-disk-0 /mnt/vmdisk101
(message) mount.nfs: remote share not in 'host:dir' format

i do not have a share defined on this VM, so this may be a bit of a stumbling block. i tried appending root as well as the Documents folder, but they failed as expected.

please note: i am not sure the local filesystem is NFS??? my shared drives were created as NFS drives, but cannot remember how the original drive is setup.

i appreciate all of the help you have already provided and apologize for consuming so much of your time!
bill

[edit] NOTE: i get the same message whether or not the VM is shutdown or in recovery mode.

 

[oguz]

what does lsblk -f say about the disk? try specifying the fs type in the mount command with "-t fstype" while mounting

 

[bill209]

what does lsblk -f say about the disk? try specifying the fs type in the mount command with "-t fstype" while mounting

the filetype is EXT4, the mount responds with 'wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock' message. host's lvscan is also provided below.

VM102$ lsblk -f

NAME   FSTYPE   LABEL   UUID     MOUNTPOINT
vda
-vda1   ext4                        65a1ac98-...
-vda2
-vda5   swap                       06b6243f-...

VM102$ root@prox:~# mount -t ext4 /dev/pve/vm-102-disk-0 /mnt/vmdisk102

mount: /mnt/vmdisk102: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/mapper/pve-vm--102--disk--0, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

PROXHOST$  lvscan

root@prox:~# lvscan | grep 102
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/vm-102-disk-0' [128.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE            '/dev/pve/vm-102-state-working' [<16.49 GiB] inherit
  inactive          '/dev/pve/snap_vm-102-disk-0_working' [128.00 GiB] inherit

are there any other commands i should run to help pinpoint the issue?