I'm totally panicking. After a mysql shutdown, I was recommended to restore my backup. I did so, but all of my disk images on the daily and weekly backups are not working. Nothing happens. Cannot connect to http, ssh, ftp etc.

I have tried to followed the procedure with rescue but with no success.

On the same backup, I also have other old disk images. For some reasons they are operational but it would be a disaster to be forced to use these.

I have contacted the support but what can be causing this problem?

You're gonna need to clarify what "not working" means here. Are the services failing to start? What do the logs say? What have you checked? etc etc.

With no information, the best we can say is "things could be causing this".

- Les

Not working as not being abled to connect to the server at all when booting with the backup disk image in question. No http, ssh, ftp etc.

When you log in, are the services running? Is networking up? Are there logs indicating that it tried to start them? Or why they failed?

- Les

I can see on manager.linode.com that the server is running but I cannot access any services (http, ftp) or login to ssh when I enable the new disk image on the backup from yesterday.

If I choose to boot another disk image (the old ones) from the same backup, everything is operational.

Use Lish to check those things: https://library.linode.com/using-lish-the-linode-shell

If you can't log in to Lish, boot into Rescue Mode and figure out why: https://library.linode.com/rescue-and-r ... escue-mode

- Les

Yes, I have tried to log into the LISH after enabling the disk image. I can log in but everything is halted after:

md: raid0 personality registered for level 0
md: raid1 personality registered for level 1
md: raid10 personality registered for level 10
md: raid6 personality registered for level 6
md: raid5 personality registered for level 5
md: raid4 personality registered for level 4
md: multipath personality registered for level -4
device-mapper: ioctl: 4.26.0-ioctl (2013-08-15) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
device-mapper: raid: Loading target version 1.5.2
GACT probability NOT on
Mirror/redirect action on
Failed to load ipt action
netem: version 1.3
u32 classifier
Performance counters on
Actions configured
Netfilter messages via NETLINK v0.30.
nfnl_acct: registering with nfnetlink.
nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (8192 buckets, 65536 max)
ctnetlink v0.93: registering with nfnetlink.
xt_time: kernel timezone is -0000
ip_set: protocol 6
ipip: IPv4 over IPv4 tunneling driver
gre: GRE over IPv4 demultiplexor driver
ip_gre: GRE over IPv4 tunneling driver
IPv4 over IPSec tunneling driver
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
ipt_CLUSTERIP: ClusterIP Version 0.8 loaded successfully
TCP: cubic registered
Initializing XFRM netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 10
ip6_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
sit: IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver
ip6_gre: GRE over IPv6 tunneling driver
NET: Registered protocol family 17
NET: Registered protocol family 15
Bridge firewalling registered
Ebtables v2.0 registered
8021q: 802.1Q VLAN Support v1.8
sctp: Hash tables configured (established 65536 bind 65536)
Key type dns_resolver registered
Key type ceph registered
libceph: loaded (mon/osd proto 15/24)
Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
registered taskstats version 1
Key type encrypted registered
console [netcon0] enabled
netconsole: network logging started
drivers/rtc/hctosys.c: unable to open rtc device (rtc0)
md: Waiting for all devices to be available before autodetect
md: If you don't use raid, use raid=noautodetect
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: Scanned 0 and added 0 devices.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
EXT3-fs: barriers not enabled
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs (xvda): mounted filesystem with writeback data mode
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly on device 202:0.
devtmpfs: mounted
Freeing unused kernel memory: 424K (c095b000 - c09c5000)
Write protecting the kernel text: 6512k
Write protecting the kernel read-only data: 1748k
NX-protecting the kernel data: 2704k

I have also booting into the rescue mode and followed the instructions.

And the support is just suggesting I'm doing the same thing again. AM I not supposed to trust the backup service I'm paying for? How can this be that two separate backups from yesterday and from last week is displaying same error? Disk image 1 (recent) is not working, while Disk image 2 (from last year, not changed since then) is fully operational within the same backup?

The Backup Service takes an exact copy of all the files on your system and stores them. Restores put back copies of all those files. So if the restore job said it succeeded, it did. What we cannot account for are any changes on your system that will break it on boot but haven't been identified by you because the system hasn't rebooted.

Based on those logs, it looks like your system's init process is stalling out when trying to start things. You're gonna need to use Rescue Mode to investigate why.

- Les

Where should I look for this potential error halting the init process? Obviously I have to mount xvda but where should I look then?

I'd probably check the various files in /var/log, also /etc/fstab for good measure. Might be worth trying to chroot into the image and see what works/doesn't.

- Les

I have really not made any changes to the server that should have caused the problem... Just wordpress on that disk image and all I have changed lately is the content... and maybe some plugins....

Are you booting the correct Configuration? Does it have the correct Disk Image selected as /dev/xvda?
Another question - can you boot your Linode Linux in single mode?