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RESCUE(8)		     System Manager's Manual		       RESCUE(8)

NAME
     rescue -- rescue utilities in /rescue

DESCRIPTION
     The  /rescue  directory  contains a collection of common utilities intended
     for use in recovering a badly damaged system.  With the transition to a dy-
     namically-linked root beginning with FreeBSD 5.2, there is a real possibil-
     ity that the standard tools in /bin and /sbin may become non-functional due
     to a failed upgrade or a disk error.  The tools in /rescue  are  statically
     linked  and  should  therefore be more resistant to damage.  However, being
     statically linked, the tools in /rescue are also less functional  than  the
     standard  utilities.   In	particular, they do not have full use of the lo-
     cale, pam(3), and nsswitch libraries.

     If your system fails to boot, and it shows a prompt similar to:

	   Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh:

     the first thing to try running is the standard  shell,  /bin/sh.	If  that
     fails,  try  running  /rescue/sh, which is the rescue shell.  To repair the
     system, the root partition must first be remounted read-write.  This can be
     done with the following mount(8) command:

	   /rescue/mount -uw /

     The next step is to double-check the contents of /bin, /sbin, and /usr/lib,
     possibly mounting a FreeBSD rescue or "live file system" CD-ROM and copying
     files from there.	 Once  it  is  possible  to  successfully  run	/bin/sh,
     /bin/ls, and other standard utilities, try rebooting back into the standard
     system.

     The /rescue tools are compiled using crunchgen(1), which makes them consid-
     erably more compact than the standard utilities.  To build a FreeBSD system
     where space is critical, /rescue can be used as a replacement for the stan-
     dard  /bin  and  /sbin directories; simply change /bin and /sbin to be sym-
     bolic links pointing to /rescue.  Since /rescue is  statically  linked,  it
     should  also be possible to dispense with much of /usr/lib in such an envi-
     ronment.

     In contrast to its predecessor /stand, /rescue  is  updated  during  normal
     FreeBSD source and binary upgrades.

FILES
     /rescue  Root of the rescue hierarchy.

SEE ALSO
     crunchgen(1), crash(8)

HISTORY
     The rescue utilities first appeared in FreeBSD 5.2.

AUTHORS
     The rescue system was written by Tim Kientzle <kientzle@FreeBSD.org>, based
     on  ideas	taken  from  NetBSD.   This  manual page was written by Simon L.
     Nielsen  <simon@FreeBSD.org>,  based  on  text  by  Tim  Kientzle	 <kient-
     zle@FreeBSD.org>.

BUGS
     Most  of  the rescue tools work even in a fairly crippled system.	The most
     egregious exception is the rescue version of  vi(1),  which  currently  re-
     quires  that  /usr  be  mounted so that it can access the termcap(5) files.
     Hopefully, a failsafe termcap(3) entry will eventually be	added  into  the
     ncurses(3)  library,  so that /rescue/vi can be used even in a system where
     /usr cannot immediately be mounted.  In the meantime, the rescue version of
     the ed(1) editor can be used from /rescue/ed if you need to edit files, but
     cannot mount /usr.

FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly	  June 30, 2022 		       RESCUE(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=rescue&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE+and+Ports.quarterly>

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