So my sshd service won't start after a system upgrade. I have no uart access, so currently no console access. I do have access to the root drive on a usb device.

I suspect systemd is having a problem starting sshd from the ssh.service unit file. But I'm not sure how to fix it. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Here are the contents of my ssh.service file. I checked that /etc/ssh/sshd_not_to_be_run doesn't exist. I'm a little confused about the runtime directory, so I made a folder in the root directory called sshd with 0755 permissions, but that doesn't seem right.

 

Strangely I couldn't find anything in the syslog file that mentioned ssh.

 

[Unit]
Description=OpenBSD Secure Shell server
After=network.target auditd.service
ConditionPathExists=!/etc/ssh/sshd_not_to_be_run

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/ssh
ExecStartPre=/usr/sbin/sshd -t
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/sshd -D $SSHD_OPTS
ExecReload=/usr/sbin/sshd -t
ExecReload=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
KillMode=process
Restart=on-failure
RestartPreventExitStatus=255
Type=notify
RuntimeDirectory=sshd
RuntimeDirectoryMode=0755

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Alias=sshd.service

 

Also, here are the contents of /etc/armbian-release

# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
BOARD=odroidxu4
BOARD_NAME="Odroid XU4"
BOARDFAMILY=odroidxu4
BUILD_REPOSITORY_URL=https://github.com/armbian/build
BUILD_REPOSITORY_COMMIT=8250438c
VERSION=5.97
LINUXFAMILY=odroidxu4
BRANCH=next
ARCH=arm
IMAGE_TYPE=user-built
BOARD_TYPE=conf
INITRD_ARCH=arm
KERNEL_IMAGE_TYPE=zImage

 

14 minutes ago, abear said:

But I'm not sure how to fix it.

Next kernel v5.97 is not very stable. Power cycle instead reboot helps (try few times) and when you (hopefully) get your system back, do this:
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/12210-armbian-1911y-release-notes/

 

10 hours ago, Igor said:

Next kernel v5.97 is not very stable.

 

I didn't realise I was on an unstable kernel. That makes sense now though. I'll keep poking around and see what I find.

 

Thanks for the comment.

I'm pretty sure I found the problem. It's a bad file-system.

 

I think the cause of the bad filesystem was usb 2.0 hub with a long cable. I had the root drive (thumb drive) plugged in at the end of this long cable.

 

I noticed in the documentation it mentions most problems are caused by either a bad file system or a bad power supply.