Why does Red Hat Enterprise Linux drop into maintenance mode while booting?

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Issue

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux is dropping into maintenance mode while booting with the system with following message.

  Give the root password for maintenance 
  (Or press Control-D to continue): 
  

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server is dropping into maintenance mode while booting with some VolumeGroup not found errors.

Resolution

• Provide the root password at the prompt.

  Give the root password for maintenance 
  (Or press Control-D to continue):      <-------- Give root password here.
  

• Remount the root filesystem read/write and remove unwanted entries from fstab.

  # mount -o remount,rw /
  

• Check and correct the /etc/fstab entries. Verify the fstab entries using the below commands.

  # lvm lvs
  # lvm vgchange -ay
  # mount -a -v
  

• Try to find out failed mounts with above commands output and comment them from /etc/fstab file.

• If none of the volume group is reporting error then check the default target of the system.

  # systemctl get-default
  

• Output of the above command shall have "multi-user.target" or "graphical.target" if not set it using the `systemctl set-default .

Root Cause

• Invalid entries in /etc/fstab file.
• Failure with VolGroups due to various reasons.
• Incorrect target assigned to boot.

Diagnostic Steps

• In maintenance mode provide root password and execute following commands.

  # lvm lvs
  # lvm vgchange -ay
  # mount -a -v
  # cat /etc/fstab
  

• Compare the mounts listed by lvm commands against the mount -a -v command and actual entries in /etc/fstab.

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